Since the pandemic started we’ve seen shortages in both consumable items and merchandise, which we haven’t seen before in my lifetime. I recently paid over $2.40 per litre of gas, and can remember being upset at having to pay over $2 not that long ago. Early in the pandemic it was toilet paper that was scarce to find, but that was driven by fear of shortages. More recently I’ve seen the back of empty shelves where I have not seen them before, ranging from items in the butcher section, to baking items, to well known products that usually seem to have an endless supply.
And I think things will get worse before they get better.
Parts of Europe are being deforested by concerned citizens collecting firewood, by people uncertain if they will be able to afford heating fuel in the coming winter. Food banks are reporting record number of people needing their service. And certain items including basic food items will be both in short supply and more expensive than ever before.
This is not fear mongering, and it’s also not all doom and gloom, end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it, but life in general is going to get more expensive with less purchasing power and choice for a while.
How will this pan out over the next few years? It’s hard to guess because the issues of inflation, money devaluation, questions of war, and a shaky stock market are far beyond my understanding. What I suspect is that this global economic downturn is not something we will just have to deal with this winter, but something that we will deal with through all of 2023 and beyond.
We can live without our favourite brand of cereal in our grocery stores. We can wait longer than we hoped for an appliance or a new car to arrive after ordering it. What we can’t do is sustain gas and food prices that make it impossible for lower-middle class and poorer families to sustain themselves on their inflation-diminishing salaries for an extended period of time… while grocery stores and oil companies generate record quarters of profits. At what point do large corporations recognize that their record profits will fall when a significant part of the population has no buying power?
My fear is that it has to get a lot worse before significant system change will happen. In the mean time, prepare to watch your purchasing power fall over the next year and beyond.
