yes, Australia, critical thinking and a lack of non stupid people ate lacking
alas, it's ever been thus as opined by Donald Horne in his iconic 1964 book
this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2026
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I used to be 5’5, now I'm 5’4. Shrinkflation is real people!
I"m not sure of the context here, but literally since March 2020, there's hardly a week or month that goes by where there's not been some kind of shortage. Seems like it's always something. Bird flu. Bad weather wiped out tomato crop. Fire at the mustard factory. Toilet paper shortage. Coffee fungus. And on and on and on.
Most recent in my area is spring onions. They have them in the stores, they look pitiful and have doubled or tripled in price.
Regional Australia (New South Wales).
Petrol prices are the highest I've ever seen. I guess that's true everywhere.
But also, on Weds when we went to Canberra we drove past two petrol stations with their signs turned off (suggesting they were completely out) — one in the city and one in the country. I've never seen that before. The country station was back on when we passed again a couple of hours later.
UK, petrol over $4/gal is very normal here. Converting units/currencies it looks like it's over 9USD/gal here and the price hasn't moved much yet due to the war.
I didn't buy petrol anyway so it really hasn't effected me in any way. By far the worst is SSD and RAM prices and that generally seems to follow global trends. If this kills AI bullshit and components become reasonable then it seems like a good trade off.
tech jobs
Intelligence
Not a shortage, per se, but apparently cocoa products are getting more expensive due to a poor growing season or disease or some other thing heralding the end of days.
Wife sent me this the other day. It is about double what it usually is.
Check out the Amazon price rising (not an Amazon link):
Does a reduction to quality of chocolate count as a shortage? Cadburys turned to shit with a new recipe recently. Recently had white chocolate that contained no cocoa butter at all, how the fuck can they even call it white chocolate? All palm oil and it was so bad I threw it in the bin.
It was so bad I now check the ingredients list on chocolate bars before buying them.
I was looking at Easter candy at the grocery store. A small, hollow chocolate bunny is almost $10. The bargain-bin ones that used to be $0.99 are $3. I feel like coffee and chocolate have both skyrocketed in the last year.
We happened to be a drug store yesterday in the Easter candy aisle. We saw the bargain basement horrible candy maker "Palmer" with two different hollow candy rabbits.
Palmer's Parsnip Pete:
Palmer's Peter Rabbit:
Both of these were side by side and marked at $8.99 each. It took me a bit to figure out why there would be two different candy rabbits from the same company, sold at the same price.
Peter Rabbit is 5oz and is chocolate
Parsnip Pete is 7oz and isn't chocolate! - looking at the ingredients is all sugar and hydrogenated oils. Only a tiny bit of chocolate in it.
Palmer is the worst chocolate I've ever run across. Even if I'm offered it for free I won't eat it. I don't consider it chocolate, and with their other lines of products (like Pete) that isn't just a preference on my part but a provable fact.
Notice how one says milk chocolate and the other says milk chocolate flavored. For something to be called "milk chocolate" in the USA, it must have at least 10% by weight of chocolate liquor. Chocolate liquor is the result of grinding cacao, and must be 50-60% cacao fat.
What you see, especially around Easter, is a lot of cheaper candies labeled chocolate flavored or chocolatey or similar, instead of chocolate, because they don't meet the minimum cacao requirement. You can see this with other processed foods, as well. The companies aren't trying to be trendy or cute, they're complying with regulations.
Yup
I feel like coffee and chocolate have both skyrocketed in the last year.
Hmm. WalMart's online store also shows the price for Hershey's chocolate syrup up.
On the other hand, looking at Hershey's chocolate bars on Amazon, the price isn't up:
https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B086LHQHLT
And looking at a bag of sugar doesn't show any dramatic change:
https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B01BWM57CK
EDIT: Hershey's cocoa powder is up over about the same timeframe as the syrup, though:
https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B00AZNG8O4
Wow.
Water, ram and hard drives.
Yeah. For sure. Bought some stuff off marketplace, even used is expensive.
I’ll go first. One of our local gas stations is out of premium gas. It may not seem like a big deal but one of our cars is a plug-in electric that also has a gas motor that requires premium. While it’s only one station now, It’s likely a direct result of US action in Iran. I think it’s just the leading edge of problems to come.
Northeast US.
What car is it? I doubt it really requires premium fuel. It’ll probably run better on premium. But I doubt any non enthusiast naturally aspirated car would 100% require premium.
It’s a turbocharged engine on a PHEV Mini. This car is finicky AF.
If it's a first-gen Chevy Volt I ran mine for 10 years on regular gas no problem.
No, it’s a turbocharged PHEV Mini. They’re very finicky, unfortunately.
Not in Canada. Prices have gone up though.
Friends and RAM. Found some good RAM on a second hand website though. Made me happy.
Not outing my geolocation though. 😅
You have friends on the internet.
The friends on the internet:
France: nothing here. Gas prices have increased by 30 cents, but it's kind of expected and I try not to use the car whenever I can so it's still fine.
Cheapest toilet paper.
It's already begun.
I wish I could delete this comment lol.
The moment people start making this comment on the internet it will be over.
Adderall (NYC, USA) still
That one I know all too well. Been that way for years.
Canada, gas prices went up 50%
I have a shortage of friends.
A shortage of shawtys?
A famine of friends?
A dearth of dudes?
A paucity of pals?
Rural Alberta. Not really. Prices of gas have gone up a bit, but not enough to change life. There's enough family doctors to go around in this pocket, even if they're questionable.
In Calgary they have water shortages, because they road-salted their water mains into oblivion. Canada in general has housing and family doctor shortages, although Calgary actually has a glut of apartments right now.
Beef, did not pay attention to why but they hope to fix it soon.
Gas prices are up, but I'm in California, and our gas prices are always quite high relative to the rest of the US anyway, due to additional regulatory requirements.
I'm experiencing a shortage of self-worth, drive, grit, effort, and emotional regulation. do those count.
Was having a hard time finding frozen fish the other day, but it was because the store was in the process of putting out new freezers and they were waiting to stock until the freezers were ready.
Gas is up about $1/gal in the last month or so. It was up 10 cents a day for a bit.
Think I'm going to stock up on gas and then sell door to door
There are a few petrol shortages in the UK I believe, but that's mostly people panic buying. I have an EV so doesn't affect me!
From where I stand, there shurely seems to be not much hope left...
Please go to !hopeposting@lemmy.world and feel better.
Thanks mate. Not so much personal desperation, rather the global gloom that overwhelms everybody that keep up with current events