What I'm seeing is some of the lowest gas prices of many years, at least I have not seen it below what I paid for it last night after of the year 2000 anyway. $1.11a gallon.

Pictures of the pump 2 days ago.

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As far as the store shelves, as of this morning with two major retailers just about everything was back in stock and well stocked up with exception of about half of the paper goods isle and some specialty products like Lysol disinfectant and those sanitizing wipes in single service containers and a very few other select items were either very low or not in stock.  But I would say 90% of the store is back. I do not believe there was ever a problem with the supply chain, it was with the the trucking of it, the manpower and the labor including the packaging to deliver it and get it into the stores, which takes some time to do.

Pictures this morning of what was about the number one complaint from most everybody was the paper goods aisle.

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You know all of the shortages of food product, cleaning product, paper goods product, etc., are just about over, at least in the Midwest anyway.  The smaller stores, the larger multi location chain stores and the warehouse club/wholesale stores, just about have all of their normal stock levels back now, with a few exceptions. 

I said it all along.  Consumer created and almost everyone fell into it, "OMG, there will be no more toilet paper., no more bread, no more meat, no more this---no more that", and so on and so forth with virtually all of the common everyday products we all buy once a week, bread, eggs and even vitamins. 

The perpetrated it to the millionth power!  All day, every day reporting about limits, lines, closures, out of stock, plants closing down, etc., etc. Of course the highest majority of the American public runs out and begins the hoarding process. 

Some one tell you something enough, you are exposed to the highest majority of those around you when in public doing something, you constantly see and hear on the news about the shortages, plant closures and everything else related to the marketplaces dwindling inventory levels, etc., the common/average person becomes of the same mind frame. 

Now, the stores are just about restocked, new and increased inventory levels, and other adjustments.  With the exception of an infrequent food processing plant story or something else of similar nature, the media is just absent of what they religiously harped on with such power, gusto and energy for the first month of all this C-19 stuff!

You know as I have said before, all of this creation of news, broadcasting, relaying it all, repeating it all with the extreme gusto and belief, is a very close analogy as to what happens at the casino and on the websites with new, newer and inexperienced players.  Once the drama, the story, the reality of what the person is harping on all fizzles out, move on to the next one.  The analogy is similar without any doubt whatsoever.

Over the weekend I was in four major cities, with populations anywhere from close to 1 million to over three million people in each. I went into a couple major stores in each city and basically everything is back in stock, with the exception of maybe some Lysol products.

And I noticed and I was very saddened by it, was how most of the products had price increases. These price increases were caused by one thing. CONSUMER DEMAND. Causing supply and demand. All the consumer did was buy, hoard and stock up on products and they caused almost all products to have a price increase.

Nothing wrong, nothing illegal, just supply and demand. People did it to themselves! I noticed anywhere from $0.75 to $3.00 increases on products of the $10 range. I absolutely knew this was going to happen and I mentioned it in previous posts. If you completely wipe out shelves repeatedly, there's nothing that the manufacturer, the supplier and the distributor is going to do except raise prices.

Congratulations people you did it to yourselves.

Yesterday in a few major stores, just about all the shelves are back to normal as far as inventory level except for the Lysol products once again. Of course there's lots of knock-offs  and new items in the cleaning isles, that are claiming the same thing that Lysol does if not better.

Pricing is considerably more with the majority of the everyday items, that's a done deal at this point. Which consumers drove it all up and will continue to drive it up. That's all that buying and hoarding does, is affect supply and demand with every item I've seen it is considerably more then what it used to be.

Now I noticed in most of the major stores where there are limits signs on buying certain high demand products that used to be one and two, almost all of them have moved to limit four or greater.

No more talk, no more everyday--all day media about the bare shelves, about the lack of toilet paper or ground beef or even cleaning products or anything else. They're all on to other things. No more consumer groups yelling and screaming, no more media about any any of it that I see unless you're on some obscure website or digginging down in the internet to find something about it.

Once again, congratulations people you did it to yourselves.

This morning I had to run to the market to get a couple of things for later today. I decided to check out the paper goods aisle and it was officially pretty much stocked up.   I wanted to show you what it looked like. This is a little smaller market property of a larger chain brand.  They get their supply from another Supercenter Store of theirs that is much bigger than this one, and if they're out of anything everybody comes to this one to get it. Safe to say the supersized store is fully stocked,  plus if they weren't this one would be down to the bare shelf. 

I checked out the ground beef prices and the cheapest is $5.99, goes from $5.99 to $6.99 a pound when it used to be anywhere from $2.99 to $3.99, maybe $4.99 for the 93/7 blend but that is up near $8 now.  Their Fried Chicken which is usually pretty good is now two piece with two sides for $6.99 when it used to be $4.99, and their 8-piece now is $9.99 when it used to be $7.99. Just the way it is with supply and demand.

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