I have not seen any shortages of products in my area. I have seen a lot of excessive price increases blamed on shortages but I think it's just price gouging by greedy corporations.
That might be ture in some cases. For example, while gas prices are definitely up in this area (Costco, always the cheapest, is now over $3/gal), there seems to be no shortage of gas - all gas stations open, all with all of their pumps open, etc. Sometimes it is like when a major storm approaches the gulf - "we *might* have gas shortages soon, so lets raise the price now"
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DW was concerned when she saw a news report of empty shelves. I watch the report and 90% of it was what I call "scary anticipation" - "we know ships are backed up in a port so that may lead to shortages and lets show video of some not fully stocked shelves at one store, in anticipation of what everything might look like sometime in the future". From actually going around to more than half-dozen stores in our area, (a) Everything seems fully or near fully stocked, and (b) what what out of stock or low in one store seemed to be in full or near full stock in another store.
There are shortages, but after skimming this thread I would put 95% of them in the "expensive wants" category
. I think the only real shortage impacting me is waiting for a part needed to repair our fridge. However, since the issue is the fridge side being too cold, we can deal with waiting things out.
There is definitely a worker shortage. During my going around to the stores, every one of them had signs advertising for workers. In two stores when I chatted with employees about it, both encouraged me to apply. They were honest enough to say that the store was offering bonuses to employees who recruited workers for the store.
