Is My Attempt at Hoarding Merely Transitory?

 

It depends on definitions. An individual's life is transitory, in the grand scheme of things.

This term cropped up regarding inflation and it may or may not be transitory, but what about my hoarding habits, due to covid? I realize that Jerome Powell has said it might be time to retire the term "transitory". Seems like an admission that someone was wrong, when first describing inflation as merely transitory. Which begs the question of how much else might be wrong? Oh well, back to my situation.

Shortages early in the Pandemic caused me to add shelves inside the house; stuff the pantry full and then those added shelves being packed. It took a while to get that done but was largely completed in August 2020. At that time, it became just a matter of maintaining the stash. 

Since then, there has been limited contact with people and mostly visits to healthcare settings, etc. This has become normal, and I don't seem to have a problem with the lifestyle. In fact, discovering the many "curbside" opportunities have led me to the conclusion that I can get by quite nicely.

Having established the "stash" of goods, worry over shortages have abated. Granted, there are items each week that are marked "unavailable", but generally within a couple of weeks... they become available. The stash covers that, except for "perishables" which at times is hit or miss. Doing curbside from 2 different stores each week, reduces that as well.

Periodically, I try to evaluate the hoarded goods and estimate long term needs. Generally, this means looking at the world of covid, which currently looks dicey, even with double doses and boosters. 

Which brings me to discuss this Omicron variant. A lot seems to be missing regarding knowledge of this variant. I feel confident our own personal lifestyle should keep us safe from these variants. These variants will likely continue for quite a while as new types of vaccines will likely need to be developed and the lag time between development and sufficient global uptake to slow the rate of mutations... seems to be out of reach.

I would suspect the "supply chain" crisis will be alleviated in the spring, but that does not necessarily mean everything will be readily available, especially in the food area. When I refer to supply chain crisis, I am referring to the piles of goods at our ports, intermodal congestion, etc. We still have the issue of countries closing borders, the flow of goods, etc. You can't really have port congestion if there is no cargo coming in. 

Inflation will likely continue to be a factor, well into 2022, imo. I can almost guarantee the CPI for November will be at 40-year highs and December might ease a bit from the November numbers, as energy seems to be plateauing. However, nothing else seems to be easing, although it may well be the October retail sales, which were stellar and might just be people ordering Holiday "stuff" early... to avoid any potential shortages. That might explain the less than stellar sales of the past Thanksgiving weekend.

Food does not seem to be catching a break and given the disruption to meat packers, etc. due to covid; disruption to farmers worldwide, due to weather and covid, it would seem to indicate no immediate relief in the inflation trajectory. 

While most of our food supplies are of North American origin and would seemingly be safe from issues overseas, etc., the packaging materials, equipment, and replacement parts of equipment used in the food sector are not so safe, imo. 

Just as many industries are moving from the just-in-time model to the just-in-case model, it seems imperative that I consider that as well... which I did but need to continue.

I cannot say when I will ease off the hoarding or if I ever will. There are certain benefits to knowing I have enough to overcome most issues. So, renewing my zeal for hoarding and maintaining the current stockpile will continue and perhaps I will consider expanding, although the latter is much less likely.

Everything stated to this point is about unknowns, regarding inflation and supplies, but another worry and also unknown as well... is breakdown of societal norms, via social upheaval and in case anyone has forgotten... 2022 is an election year for all of Congress and 1/3 of the Senate. By the way... vaccine hesitancy will likely become a bigger issue, the Supreme Court is weighing in on some "hot" topics and people are generally in a bad mood over just about anything you can imagine. Some people are mad at other people because the other people are mad and it escalates from there. 

Outbreaks of the past have seen public trust eroded and with it... a breakdown in societal norms. The Spanish Flu saw some of these societal issues regarding trust in authority figures and the Black Plague was catastrophic.

Trust in leadership had been waning pre-pandemic and multiple factors not directly related to Covid... has eroded the trust even more. 

History indicates that breakdowns in society are not merely transitory, in that it requires changes over may years to achieve a new normalcy. Transitory might mean a lifetime.