Hacker News Reader

Comment by rossdavidh | Hacker News Reader

All of them. My wife had a problem getting studded leather belts for her goth/punk clothing store. T-shirts for old cult horror films are in short supply because the blank shirts aren't available as easily. Packages that do show up at the store are rain-soaked or dumped outside for anyone to find because the FedEx/DHL/etc delivery guy is overworked. You name it, if it involves the economy, it's weird now.

View on HN

A lot of that, and over here in Germany there's even a weird bag shortage. Super markets running out of plastic and paper bags, in some places even McDonalds has started to use unbranded white paper bags.

Same supermarkets are now also mentioning "inflation" as part of their weekly discount brochures, which is not something I think I've ever seen them do before.

Oh. I noticed that none of the supermarkets around me have had any bags for weeks. I somehow didn't connect the dots that there was a bag shortage. Odd. Why would there be a bag shortage?

> Odd. Why would there be a bag shortage?

Apparently a combination of phasing out plastic bags while there's a pandemic related supply shortage of paper. At least that's what German news are saying, no more details as I can't find anything without a paywall.

Right around the start of the epidemic, my state (US, not California) banned plastic bags. In the early part of it, the ban was relaxed, probably because it was felt that plastic bags might be more sanitary. But then they disappeared again.

So I've gotten used to reusing the paper bags, which now cost a few cents.

It's funny that you're still using plastic bags.

It's not banned, but I rarely see people using them in Germany. I think it speak volumes about a countries culture when a ban is not even necessary for people to mostly stop using plastic bags. Almost everyone carries their tote bags.

Way back in 2001 when I was in Dresden for 6 months, they did not have free bags of any sort at the grocery store, it just wasn't the normal way there. We didn't know that the first time we went grocery shopping, and they had to scrounge up some old cardboard boxes for us to use to carry our groceries out. Everyone else knew to bring their own tote bags.

> they had to scrounge up some old cardboard boxes for us to use to carry our groceries out

Really not that out of the ordinary; Back then plenty of supermarkets still had "cardboard corners".

People who bought stuff in bulk could dispose of the boxes there, while people who forgot to bring a bag could take some boxes from the corner to carry their groceries.

They can still be found in discounters in the more lower income areas but have become noticeably rarer.

Aha, I didn't know that! We were newbies there, and assumed we had just made a newbie mistake. But we made sure to bring tote bags thereafter.

>tote bags

I think they're a scam. They cost orders of magnitude more than paper bags. There is hardly anything people like better than rationalizations for spending more rather than less to save the environment. Pull out the magic word "externalities", it can do anything!

Over in America, pet food has been subject to a fair amount of variability lately. It's gotten to the point that I just drive down the highway I live by every couple weeks and hit up every Target along the way to find the wet food my mom's cats like (they're picky eaters). So far, I've been able to get enough every time with just three Targets, but there are plenty of others I could hit up if needed. The town she lives in has one Target, two Walmarts, one Petsmart, and they've all been out of stock for over a month.

Never thought I'd be supplying my mom with cat food, but here we are.

I am glad that we have pets and that we take such good care of them. That said, it is very amazing to me that even our animals have food preferences.

Part of it is that my mom basically fed them their favorite wet foods, and cats can eventually "develop finicky eating habits and become very selective about what foods they’ll accept" [0].

[0]: https://www.vet.cornell.edu/departments-centers-and-institut...

The talk about supply chain problems makes me think of:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_windshield_pitting_epi...

Explain why the "coin shortage" seems situational and intermittent.

Nevertheless, it seems like I can't find mini pretzels, except for one brand I hate.

Thicker pretzels, yes. But not thin ones. And it seemed like they disappeared abruptly in the last few weeks.

I've checked enough stores to wonder if it's regional or national.

Not sure how you get to supply chain issues being imaginary? A supply chain problem doesn't necessarily mean "totally unavailable everywhere".

Even if it is "imaginary", there's a positive feedback loop between the belief that supply chain issues exist and changes in buying patterns.

>Not sure how you get to supply chain issues being imaginary?

Not sure how you concluded that I think every reported instance is imaginary; that's definitely incompatible with my previous comment. The window pits weren't imaginary!

>A supply chain problem doesn't necessarily mean "totally unavailable everywhere".

I agree, but how do you tell the difference between something that happens all the time and nobody noticed a couple years ago outside of maybe a trade magazine about logistics, vs. something that is new and different?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com