Panic Buying

One of the more interesting things I learned at university was how the logical and sensible thing to do, or even the mathematically-optimal course of action, might not be the best thing to do.

For example, looking at the National Lottery objectively, one can only conclude that you should never play. Given the stake and the odds of winning, and except in double rollover conditions, the reward is not commesurate with the risk. However, this is a purely numerical observation - it fails to consider the risk versus reward in real terms.

There is a band of people in the country who have sufficient income that paying out £1 for a lottery ticket once or twice a week represents virtually no cost. This is especially true since most people tend to have other vices that they could readily cut back on to make the necessary saving. However, for most people, winning a jackpot of several million pounds would make a massive difference to their lives.

Under those circumstances, with virtually no 'real terms' risk, and huge potential reward (even with almost no chance of success), there is a rational case for playing the lottery.

(I'm not going to get into the moral case against the lottery. That whole debate hinges on questions of free will and personal responsibility that I really don't feel like exploring just now. Besides, I'm not actually blogging about the lottery anyway...)

Anyway, this strike at the Grangemouth refinery (about ten minutes drive from home!) has seen the risk of petrol shortages be raised, with predictable results.

Rationally, where there is a projected temporary shortage of fuel, the sane thing to do is to follow your normal routine. When you need to fill up on petrol, go do that. Perhaps you should cut out unnecessary journeys, but that's about all. If everyone does that, then the shortages may well not bite at all, and even if they do, then they hit everyone about the same. Sure, you might end up not being able to get fuel, with the consequences that come from that... but by then lots of other people will also be running out, so we're all in the mess together and will cope somehow.

That's not what happens, of course. Instead, at the first hint that perhaps the fuel supply might be cut off for a day, people panic. Quick: dash to the supermarket and stockpile bread, and milk, and beans, and a shotgun! Fill up the car, and every available empty container will fuel! Fill the bath! Heck, steal your neighbours' cars, and fill those too! Truly, it is a sign of the apocalypse: Mother might have to walk little Timmy to school one morning next week!

Unfortunately, this changes the situation. If you are the only person to keep his head while everyone else prepares for the End Times, then you'll see the availability of fuel plummet, the prices shoot up, and just as you need to fill up your tank on Friday (having exhausted the week's petrol it holds over the course of a week) you'll find you can't get fuel, while everyone else is happily drowning in petrol. And as for getting bread, or milk, or beans... forget it.

At which point, your only option is to try to make it to Ikea somehow, purchase a horned helm (or not, depending on historical accuracy), and go viking.

Since no-one really wants that, one is forced to the conclusion: when everyone else is panicking, the rational thing to do is to panic also.