What's with the panic buying, and so on?

The best thing I've seen on the topic.

“The thing about panic-buying is that it gives us a sense of control at a time when we’re lacking that,” says Deborah Small, a psychologist who studies consumer judgment and human decision-making at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. She adds that things get harried when “people hear that other people are buying something, and they say, ‘Oh, I need that too.’ And it just spirals to this level where we have none.”

But seeing what’s being left behind at grocery stores, like all that unloved Skippy the couple passed over, also tells a compelling story. As beleaguered systems like healthcare, immigration, and labor practices buckle under the weight of an unparalleled pandemic, the cracks being exposed are the ones that have actually always been there—if you knew where to look. The same is true for what the average consumer can now learn about the American food system, plain as day. - The Counter