The Coronavirus Thread...

[mcnuttz]

Our first few small group sessions went okay. Only have a manager and a few hourly associates that wigged out.

Actually I am comfortable with people being anxious. It is the stupid dumbasses now that keep pretending this isn't real. Those are the fools who aren't maintaining social distance and hygiene necessities. Those are the ones who worry me.

The positive case was just at his church singing at the choir on Sunday and reported to work with a fever on Monday which was caught before he got into the building since we are screening everyone.

I heard they arrested a preacher in our local area for having a gathering at his church.

No doubt folks have faith in their God, but surely we have room for a little common sense.

 

[jsmith6919]

I heard they arrested a preacher in our local area for having a gathering at his church.

No doubt folks have faith in their God, but surely we have room for a little common sense.

He should have told the cops they breaking in to steal stuff and just got fined

 

[Cotton]

There are still people taking cruises. Talk about retarded.

 

[Cotton]

Easier to login

There is this cool feature on this software called "Remember me". You should look into it.

 

[data]

There are still people taking cruises. Talk about retarded.

I wonder if EZ is still swingin

 

[data]

There is this cool feature on this software called "Remember me". You should look into it.

I commonly login from public sources

 

[Cotton]

I commonly login from public sources

Where the hell are you surfing the DCC? The library?

 

[Cotton]

Microsoft and Apple stores, Verizon stores, Best Buy, etc

You are so weird.

 

[Cotton]

 

[Cotton]

Despite it being a month since the panic buying started and assurance that they'd be in supply, toilet paper and paper towels are still hard to find.

It's not an issue here anymore. Costco especially got ahead of the curve and started limiting early on, so they have tons. Perfect example of how the free market doesn't need the government overlords to tell us how to survive our lives.

 

[jsmith6919]

So one Lubbock Costco has toilet paper and free market is vindicated, huh? Instead of govt, now we need Costco to regulate how much we buy.

Speaking of which, gas is $2.99/gallon. It's 2000 again, motherfuckers!

We're around $1.50 for gas here

 

[Cotton]

So one Lubbock Costco has toilet paper and free market is vindicated, huh? Instead of govt, now we need Costco to regulate how much we buy.

Speaking of which, gas is $2.99/gallon. It's 2000 again, motherfuckers!

The answer is yes. It vindicates the free market. And, no, we don't need Costco to do anything, but they did because it's the right thing to do.

 

[Chocolate Lab]

Speaking of which, gas is $2.99/gallon. It's 2000 again, motherfuckers!

It's like $1.50 around here...

Just looked on Gasbuddy and it's going for 99 cents around Oklahoma City. Whoa.

 

[Cotton]

We're around $1.50 for gas here

Yeah, we are at about $1.60 here.

 

[jsmith6919]

This article explains pretty well why there is still a tp shortage

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In short, the toilet paper industry is split into two, largely separate markets: commercial and consumer. The pandemic has shifted the lion’s share of demand to the latter. People actually do need to buy significantly more toilet paper during the pandemic — not because they’re making more trips to the bathroom, but because they’re making more of them at home. With some 75% of the U.S. population under stay-at-home orders, Americans are no longer using the restrooms at their workplace, in schools, at restaurants, at hotels, or in airports.

Georgia-Pacific, a leading toilet paper manufacturer based in Atlanta, estimates that the average household will use 40% more toilet paper than usual if all of its members are staying home around the clock. That’s a huge leap in demand for a product whose supply chain is predicated on the assumption that demand is essentially constant. It’s one that won’t fully subside even when people stop hoarding or panic-buying.

If you’re looking for where all the toilet paper went, forget about people’s attics or hall closets. Think instead of all the toilet paper that normally goes to the commercial market — those office buildings, college campuses, Starbucks, and airports that are now either mostly empty or closed. That’s the toilet paper that’s suddenly going unused.

So why can’t we just send that toilet paper to Safeway or CVS? That’s where supply chains and distribution channels come in.

Not only is it not the same product, but it often doesn’t come from the same mills.

Talk to anyone in the industry, and they’ll tell you the toilet paper made for the commercial market is a fundamentally different product from the toilet paper you buy in the store. It comes in huge rolls, too big to fit on most home dispensers. The paper itself is thinner and more utilitarian. It comes individually wrapped and is shipped on huge pallets, rather than in brightly branded packs of six or 12.

“Not only is it not the same product, but it often doesn’t come from the same mills,” added Jim Luke, a professor of economics at Lansing Community College, who once worked as head of planning for a wholesale paper distributor. “So for instance, Procter & Gamble [which owns Charmin] is huge in the retail consumer market. But it doesn’t play in the institutional market at all.”

Georgia-Pacific, which sells to both markets, told me its commercial products also use more recycled fiber, while the retail sheets for its consumer brands Angel Soft and Quilted Northern are typically 100% virgin fiber. Eric Abercrombie, a spokesman for the company, said it has seen demand rise on the retail side, while it expects a decline in the “away-from-home activity” that drives its business-to-business sales.

In theory, some of the mills that make commercial toilet paper could try to redirect some of that supply to the consumer market. People desperate for toilet paper probably wouldn’t turn up their noses at it. But the industry can’t just flip a switch. Shifting to retail channels would require new relationships and contracts between suppliers, distributors, and stores; different formats for packaging and shipping; new trucking routes — all for a bulky product with lean profit margins.

Because toilet paper is high volume but low value, the industry runs on extreme efficiency, with mills built to work at full capacity around the clock even in normal times. That works only because demand is typically so steady. If toilet paper manufacturers spend a bunch of money now to refocus on the retail channel, they’ll face the same problem in reverse once people head back to work again.

 

[NoDak]

It's not an issue here anymore. Costco especially got ahead of the curve and started limiting early on, so they have tons. Perfect example of how the free market doesn't need the government overlords to tell us how to survive our lives.

It's not an issue here anymore, either. Walmart, grocery stores, dollar stores, etc... They all have it.

 

[NoDak]

Speaking of which, gas is $2.99/gallon. It's 2000 again, motherfuckers!

Gas hasn't been as high as 2.99 a gallon here for years.

 

[boozeman]

I heard they arrested a preacher in our local area for having a gathering at his church.

No doubt folks have faith in their God, but surely we have room for a little common sense.

This kid we have was on his church's Facebook cast singing in the damn choir, shoulder to shoulder.

I am sorry, I have zero sympathy.

 

[boozeman]

Easier to login

Change it back.

 

[jsmith6919]