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Yeah people always make that argument about labor shortages (you're just not paying enough) but when I made the argument that stores should have fixed their toi

Yeah people always make that argument about labor shortages (you're just not paying enough) but when I made the argument that stores should have fixed their toilet paper shortages last year by charging more, I got downvoted to death. It's the same thing.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
eru 5y ago
The toilet paper shortage has some more interesting aspects to it. Eg people widely blamed 'panic buyers' 'hoarding' toilet paper, and made fun of how stupid and/or selfish people were. In reality, much simpler explanations suffice: Commercial toilet paper that you use in the office (on those big rolls) comes out of entirely different machines and with entirely different materials than the consumer grade stuff you use at home. Normally, the demand for toilet paper is one of the most stable things in the world. So competition drives the manufacturers to run extremely efficient with no extra buffers. But with the pandemic, all of a sudden there was a massive demand shift away from commercial grade to the lush consumer grad stuff. Add in that many factories for all kinds of stuff had supply chain issues. Yes, raising prices on the consumer grade toilet paper would have helped: it would have encouraged people to economise and to find substitutes (like going with the commercial grade stuff, or a bidet). But for PR/psychological reasons, there seems to be a limit to how much supermarkets can raise prices for daily essentials.
- thayne 5y ago
  I've seen that argument, and I'm sure it has some truth to it and may have been the main problem in some areas. However, where I live stores ran out of toilet paper (and hand sanitizer, and water, and diapers) a couple weeks before things started shutting down. I don't see how the commercial vs consumer grade toilet paper explains that.
  - throwaway219203 5y ago
    Could this type of operation had something to do with it? https://www.smh.com.au/national/chinese-backed-company-s-mission-to-source-australian-medical-supplies-20200325-p54du8.html https://www.smh.com.au/national/chinese-backed-company-s-mis...
  - eru 5y ago
    What timeline are you talking about? Also, toilet paper is probably traded over longer distances than you realize. Your area not shutting down yet, doesn't mean other areas weren't already affected?
dagenix 5y ago
That's not the same thing. The reason that you couldn't buy toilet paper was because there was literally none of it on the shelf. That is a shortage. You could show up with $1,000 and you still can't make toilet paper show up out of thin air when it's not there. What you are describing is having stores re-price toilet paper to reflect demand. And that would have fixed the shortage. The problem then isn't that toilet paper isn't available, its that its price becomes completely unethical - rich people and not-rich people both have an equal right to toilet paper and pricing it up to level where the less well compensated have a hard time affording it - even if is available - is ethically problematic. Outside of there being laws against price gouging, stores know that customers will never forgive them for this - if you are working at a minimum wage job and you show up to Target and toilet paper costs $150 you could very well swear to never go there again. That is massively different than what is going on here. We're talking about huge corporations that have spent years reducing their work force that want to increase their work for now and are upset that they can't get the same prices for labor as before. It's not like labor is going to cost 10x as before - it's an incremental increase. And its not like this is some fundamental right - people of all income levels should have a basic right to keep themselves clean. Corporations don't get to dictate what it wants to pay its workers. A 25% bump in toilet paper costs probably wouldn't have fixed the toilet paper shortage. A 25% bump in pay may very well fix this "labor shortage". They aren't the same things.
- ZephyrBlu 5y ago
  It seems like you're conflating toilet paper being a product vs someone working being more like a service. A shop being out of stock does not in itself mean there is a shortage. > The problem then isn't that toilet paper isn't available, its that its price becomes completely unethical > ... > That is massively different than what is going on here. We're talking about huge corporations that have spent years reducing their work force that want to increase their work for now and are upset that they can't get the same prices for labor as before It also seems like you're trying to moralize this when it's just about supply and demand.
  - dagenix 5y ago
    > A shop being out of stock does not in itself mean there is a shortage. _A_ shop being out of stock doesn't mean that there is a shortage, but when all of them are it is. > It also seems like you're trying to moralize this when it's just about supply and demand I don't see how you can ignore the moral aspect - there is a massive difference between being able to afford toilet paper vs being able to hire workers at the rate that a corporation wants.
nostromo 5y ago
Because HN, like most people, tend to form opinions based on self interest. And people in general like pay raises but dislike not being able to wipe their bums.
dv_dt 5y ago
increasing prices on toilet paper would have fixed the supply problem for the rich. It would have likely done nothing for actually increasing the distribution problem of supplying everyone with some adequate amount of toilet paper. Nor would it have likely increased the capacity of toilet paper manufacture in the long term. Maybe variable pricing might have worked - price x for the first n rolls a and higher prices thereafter.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

eru 5y ago

The toilet paper shortage has some more interesting aspects to it. Eg people widely blamed 'panic buyers' 'hoarding' toilet paper, and made fun of how stupid and/or selfish people were. In reality, much simpler explanations suffice: Commercial toilet paper that you use in the office (on those big rolls) comes out of entirely different machines and with entirely different materials than the consumer grade stuff you use at home. Normally, the demand for toilet paper is one of the most stable things in the world. So competition drives the manufacturers to run extremely efficient with no extra buffers. But with the pandemic, all of a sudden there was a massive demand shift away from commercial grade to the lush consumer grad stuff. Add in that many factories for all kinds of stuff had supply chain issues. Yes, raising prices on the consumer grade toilet paper would have helped: it would have encouraged people to economise and to find substitutes (like going with the commercial grade stuff, or a bidet). But for PR/psychological reasons, there seems to be a limit to how much supermarkets can raise prices for daily essentials.

thayne 5y ago
I've seen that argument, and I'm sure it has some truth to it and may have been the main problem in some areas. However, where I live stores ran out of toilet paper (and hand sanitizer, and water, and diapers) a couple weeks before things started shutting down. I don't see how the commercial vs consumer grade toilet paper explains that.
- throwaway219203 5y ago
  Could this type of operation had something to do with it? https://www.smh.com.au/national/chinese-backed-company-s-mission-to-source-australian-medical-supplies-20200325-p54du8.html https://www.smh.com.au/national/chinese-backed-company-s-mis...
- eru 5y ago
  What timeline are you talking about? Also, toilet paper is probably traded over longer distances than you realize. Your area not shutting down yet, doesn't mean other areas weren't already affected?

dagenix 5y ago

That's not the same thing. The reason that you couldn't buy toilet paper was because there was literally none of it on the shelf. That is a shortage. You could show up with $1,000 and you still can't make toilet paper show up out of thin air when it's not there. What you are describing is having stores re-price toilet paper to reflect demand. And that would have fixed the shortage. The problem then isn't that toilet paper isn't available, its that its price becomes completely unethical - rich people and not-rich people both have an equal right to toilet paper and pricing it up to level where the less well compensated have a hard time affording it - even if is available - is ethically problematic. Outside of there being laws against price gouging, stores know that customers will never forgive them for this - if you are working at a minimum wage job and you show up to Target and toilet paper costs $150 you could very well swear to never go there again. That is massively different than what is going on here. We're talking about huge corporations that have spent years reducing their work force that want to increase their work for now and are upset that they can't get the same prices for labor as before. It's not like labor is going to cost 10x as before - it's an incremental increase. And its not like this is some fundamental right - people of all income levels should have a basic right to keep themselves clean. Corporations don't get to dictate what it wants to pay its workers. A 25% bump in toilet paper costs probably wouldn't have fixed the toilet paper shortage. A 25% bump in pay may very well fix this "labor shortage". They aren't the same things.

ZephyrBlu 5y ago
It seems like you're conflating toilet paper being a product vs someone working being more like a service. A shop being out of stock does not in itself mean there is a shortage. > The problem then isn't that toilet paper isn't available, its that its price becomes completely unethical > ... > That is massively different than what is going on here. We're talking about huge corporations that have spent years reducing their work force that want to increase their work for now and are upset that they can't get the same prices for labor as before It also seems like you're trying to moralize this when it's just about supply and demand.
- dagenix 5y ago
  > A shop being out of stock does not in itself mean there is a shortage. _A_ shop being out of stock doesn't mean that there is a shortage, but when all of them are it is. > It also seems like you're trying to moralize this when it's just about supply and demand I don't see how you can ignore the moral aspect - there is a massive difference between being able to afford toilet paper vs being able to hire workers at the rate that a corporation wants.

nostromo 5y ago

Because HN, like most people, tend to form opinions based on self interest. And people in general like pay raises but dislike not being able to wipe their bums.

dv_dt 5y ago

increasing prices on toilet paper would have fixed the supply problem for the rich. It would have likely done nothing for actually increasing the distribution problem of supplying everyone with some adequate amount of toilet paper. Nor would it have likely increased the capacity of toilet paper manufacture in the long term. Maybe variable pricing might have worked - price x for the first n rolls a and higher prices thereafter.