As we all probably know, there is a current problem on our hands, and an unusual one as that…. Not enough toilet paper. Major toilet paper sellers both Coles and Woolworths recently responded on the growing demand and supply issue on the toilet paper, saying that although they had a plethora of toilet paper rolls that they would soon start to ration between people who were taking too much.
This entire ordeal comes after the Corona-virus outbreak in the Hubei Provence. Since the virus started getting out of control, China closed its exports and impoarts for a lot of supplies, as a result a lot of businesses in China are suffering huge losses, and its not exclusive for China as some Australian businesses are feeling the heat of this too. One of the many things that China exports are toilet paper rolls, canned food and hand sanitiser.
According to Aljazeera, China’s reduced exports cost other countries and their industries $50bn and it is slowly rising. The following countries or regions suffering the highest export losses due to the disruption are the European Union, with nearly $15.6bn, the United States – $5.8bn, Japan – $5.2bn, the Republic of Korea – $3.8bn, Taiwan – $2.7bn and Vietnam – $2.3bn, according to the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The am
ABC has also reported the impact on India in this ordeal. Since India is the world’s main supplier of generic drugs, the coronavirus outbreak plays havoc with supply chains, India has restricted the export of 26 pharmaceutical ingredients and the medicines made from them, including paracetamol, a common pain reliever also sold as acetaminophen.
Now although this is all well and good, it raises the question of why people are going crazy over them, well it all comes back down to a physiological thing that everyone has participated in and that is follow the crowd. It all started with hand sanitiser as it does as a matter of fact reduce the amount of harmful bacteria on the surface of the skin, then people were getting frantic and thinking of ways to also decrease the amount of bacteria and a person came up with the idea of hoarding toilet paper. Now when the man was at the checkout, someone saw him do this and this and they went and bought for themselves. Like this it was a chain reaction of advertising something useless. This is because of an activity known as herd activity. The literal meaning is “how people can be influenced by their peers to adopt certain behaviors on a largely emotional, rather than rational, basis.:” This mentality is horrible for the economy and for stakeholders because people are leaning more towards trusting other people who have no idea what they are doing
Now the thing is that in the news on 15/3/19, the health minister told people to stock up on food and other needs for the next two weeks. Coles then put a two mince beef per person policy and fights are breaking out over the most ridiculous of things.
Now after all this fiasco, one would assume that toilet paper does have use in protecting us from the Coronavirus… well it doesn’t. People are panic buying everything insight when they see people stocking up on items for the next six months, although experts say that it should be controlled in about 2-3 months.
Although buying this amount of toilet paper is unrealistic and un-needed, there are other things that people need, such as red meat and wine. These items are generally compulsory and stockpiling them in a freezer isn’t a bad idea as well as stockpiling medicine. Once the Coronavirus is eventually contained it will, the remaining toilet rolls will be un-needed and therefore disposed of or thrown out, and this basically like throwing away trees.
The biggest problem now comes onto the stockholders because as a result
Now companies that are selling these items are going to be pumping out a lot of resources to keep up with the demand. Now as a result the stockholders will have a dilemma on what they do now? for they can keep pumping in money and getting money or out, or they can figure out that after this short period of time, people are not going to be buying as many things in the coming months because they know that people are going to be stocked to the brim with foods and other items.
So finally to all the people reading this don’t panic buy 20 bags of toilet paper, its not worth it. People are blindly following other peoples in hopes that they are more correct than themselves, and as a result we Australians have a ridiculous task in front of ourselves…. and that is trying to find a balance of toilet paper
junkee.com/toilet-paper-shortage-memes/24510
Year 11 MHS Economics 2020 