[EA]

Originally Posted by rhuff80

The TV. And we are stupid. People don't remember the world before bottled water, which often costs more than the cost of gasoline, which all people complain about.

I pay 94 cents a gallon for my water. It's 1/3 the cost of gas.

[CD2017]

Originally Posted by EA

I pay 94 cents a gallon for my water. It's 1/3 the cost of gas.

Which is why is said "often." At 94 cent/gal, I'd still say you're stupid.

[JonathanLB]

I guess I don’t actually know what I pay per gallon of drinking water. I mean would you have to spread the cost of the Culligan system over its expected life span and also factor the cost of water from the utility? I guess so. It still seems less wasteful than repeatedly driving to the store to buy water, though, and more convenient.

[LVguy]

Watched contagion the movie over the weekend, it was pretty nicely made. "ultra realistic" "accurate" "praised by scientists" Check it out if you want!

[RationalExpectations]

Originally Posted by jet757f

Buy Charmin stock

Nope. There is no increase in demand (no measurable incremental use of TP). All that has happened is inventory location has moved to individual homes & garages.

Unrelated but interesting - during the 1974 Arab Oil Embargo, one of the things that happened was an change in the location of gasoline inventory - instead of people filling their tank and driving until it was mostly empty (say, 1/8 of a tank or so), people got in lines to refill their tank when it was still mostly full (say, 3/4 full). This change in purchase behaviour by itself contributed significantly to the length of lines of cars waiting to get gas.

[RationalExpectations]

Originally Posted by Dport7674

Good post.

And even those percentages are almost certainly better than shown, including those above the age of 60, because of the people who get it but don't show symptoms, or get very mild symptoms and don't go to the hospital. And therefore aren't included in the official count.

Very true. But don't forget the current analysis is based for the most part on data coming out of China, and that data is subject to political manipulation.

In another month or so, the WHO and CDC and NIH should have data to look at from the non-Chinese data.

[clutchcargo777]

Originally Posted by RationalExpectations

Nope. There is no increase in demand (no measurable incremental use of TP). All that has happened is inventory location has moved to individual homes & garages.

This makes no sense. Demand isn't measured by how many times people are wiping, it is measured by how much people are buying. in other words by inventory location moving to individual homes & garages.

[OmegaSupreme]

Originally Posted by clutchcargo777

This makes no sense. Demand isn't measured by how many times people are wiping, it is measured by how much people are buying. in other words by inventory location moving to individual homes & garages.

I think what they were trying to say is that average demand will be unchanged, it's just a temporary spike.

What might happen though, is sort of like induced demand. An increase in demand is likely to occur because of the increase in supply.

[wpcoe]

A spike in demand now as folks fill their garages with toilet paper. But, once the fervor dies down and people start whittling down that stash in the garage, there should be a distinct drop in sales for a while, until the garages empty out. Over the long term it should even out?

[RationalExpectations]

Originally Posted by clutchcargo777

This makes no sense. Demand isn't measured by how many times people are wiping, it is measured by how much people are buying. in other words by inventory location moving to individual homes & garages.

Think intertemporally. In the current time period, more is purchased, resulting in a short term spike in revenue to TP manufacturers.

In the next time period, once everyone realizes there is no need to personally stockpile TP in their garages, less is purchased (people consume the TP in their garages and do not replenish this inventory - they let it shrink to the pre-Coronavirus level), resulting in a short-term dip in revenue to TP manufacturers.

The spike and the dip average out to, well, the average TP consumption & hence the average TP revenue to manufacturers. From that point forward, TP revenue returns normal, as few who are infected by the Novel Coronavirus will have any incremental need for TP. It is a respiratory virus. It does not cause diarrhea. A small number of infected people will get a separate infection which might cause diarrhea, but that really doesn't change the big picture.

Thus, there is no long term economic reason to buy toilet paper manufacturers' stock.