Will supply chain shortages teach us to live with less?

Toilet paper was the first product that seemed to disappear overnight as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold back in March 2020. Other paper products soon followed, then cleaning supplies, meats, and more. Panicked market runs soon led to gouging, hoarding, and finally restrictions at points of sale as supermarkets attempted to keep products on their shelves and most consumers, if not happy, then at least not raging at blameless checkout clerks.

What many of us believed would be a short-term problem related to pandemic labor dislocations or production site shutdowns has in recent weeks come to look like a long-term problem that could mean regular shortages of consumer goods most of us had long taken for granted. In September store shelves again began emptying. Shipping costs from Asia were up more than four-fold since January, and container ships were rocking in the waves off of Long Beach, California, unable to deliver cargo during a perfect storm of pandemic shutdowns, commodity and fuel spikes, and bruising labor shortages. The global supply chain was floundering.

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