Panic Buying and Wasted Food

I heard from Dr. John Campbell, a YouTube doctor who is commenting and giving news on the coronavirus, that a significant amount of the food that was "panic bought" when the virus was just getting started has gone to waste. That is, people bought bread and milk that they couldn't eat before it spoiled. 

I think that we can learn a bit about ourselves when we look at this situation. When it gets down to the wire, instead of changing our habits, we double down on the habits that we already have in place. 

We normally buy bread and milk, and so we buy more of it instead of the stuff that actually keeps us going in an apocalyptic situation. 

And I think the only reason people are buying so much toilet paper is because everyone else is. I think the presence of social media and its permeation into the environment has allowed a chain reaction to take place. People are buying toilet paper not because they need it but because they fear that they will need it. 

And thus we end up with people who need stuff and can't have it because other people have panic bought. 

And now we get to the touchy subject: why can't stores raise the prices of the popular stuff? To keep people from bulk and panic buying?

Well, it's morally grey to "price gouge" and people can't do it without getting into serious trouble. In an ideal situation, being able to raise prices on needed items keeps the ones who don't need it from buying it "just in case" in a "panic buying" scenario. Also, being able to raise prices on necessities allows more resources to be funneled into the production and distribution of those necessities. 

But we, as citizens of the western world, have universally legislated that "price gouging" is bad and should be punished. But, without being able to price people out of bulk panic buying, how can we keep everyone equally supplied?

True, a store can implement a "1 only" policy. But what about that guy who caught a stomach bug (unrelated to the pandemic) and is fresh out of toilet paper--and one isn't going to be enough? What is he going to do? Is this situation any less moral than raising prices on goods?

It's a battle between moralism and utilitarianism. "Price gouging" leaves people with a bad taste in their mouths. So they outlaw it. That side of the pendulum--true price gouging--won't work. But when necessities are priced low enough that people can buy more than they need, and thus deprive others of it, how do we fix that? Radical communism? Give everyone the same amount of everything?

I don't have a solution to this problem. I'm not smart enough to figure it out. On one hand, I don't want people to take advantage of a situation to extract money from people in need. On the other hand, I want people to be able to make their own decisions about how to handle their shops and resources. 

Again, I want to point out that this article does not have a solution to this problem. There are things that are objectively worse than the current situation (in the eyes of some), but I can't imagine a scenario where price gouging is taken care of while at the same time discouraging bulk panic buying (that doesn't involve total economic overhaul.) 

Anyways, smart people have been thinking about this for centuries, and no one has come up with an answer that satisfies everyone. 

I think we just have to trust in the higher power and hope that someone out there with a 300 political IQ can find a solution to this problem. 

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