ShortageWatch: “Sorry – No French Fries With Any Order, We Have No Potatoes”

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Today I’m going to follow up on last week’s issue on shortages. I got a TON of feedback, and the topic even came up at last week’s Federal Trade Commission meeting. The good news is that shortages are now on the political radar, with one FTC Commissioner talking about the rise of “Too Big to Fail” industrial firms causing shortages across the economy.

And now…

“Sorry. No French Fries with any order. We have no potatoes.”

In the last BIG issue, I asked you for help identifying shortages in your neck of the woods. Hundreds of you responded, so I’ll talk about some of the shortage stories you are sharing, as well as how this problem is resonating among policymakers.

My favorite story is quintessentially American, and un-American, at the same time. It’s from a Florida realtor who was in a hurry and stopped at a Burger King for lunch. He saw a sign, “Sorry. No French Fries with any order. We have no potatoes.” At first he thought he was imagining things. What kind of fast food place runs out of fries? Is this, he wondered, a sign of things to come?

It’s a good question. Fast food exists in a land of plenty, of surplus, of mass produced food with a reliable infrastructure of trucks, trains, farms, and distributors. Shortages of everyday goods conflicts not only with most of our lived experiences, but also with our very conception of who we are. There’s a name for this framework, and it’s called affluence.- READ MORE