Scarcity

I often find myself searching for a word for a concept that I have in mind, but have no word to describe. Sometimes I have a word in mind that is close, but it has a connotation that is too specific and conjures an meaning that isn't what I'm looking for.

Last night, some time between 2:00 am and 5:00 am when I was tossing and turning and couldn't get back to sleep, I was thinking about scarcity. It started when I was listening to a news program about vaccines in Europe.  The Prime Minister of Austria was complaining about how European vaccine manufacturers had been exporting the vaccines to foreign destinations outside of Europe, but Europe had not been able to import any vaccines because of export restrictions by some of those same foreign companies on their manufacturers.

At first this struck me as a logical complaint, and one that pundits, politicians, and most people predicted as soon as the search for a vaccine began. The question was if rich countries are the ones developing the vaccine, how do we ensure that the poorer countries are not excluded from receiving a share of the vaccines.  A cynic would question how poorer countries could be sure that they would ever get the vaccine, but most polite politically minded folk simply left the question at, "... in a reasonable time for a reasonable cost".  Questions that this line of thinking raises are: Is it right for a country to refuse to export the vaccine before it has vaccinated enough of it's own population to get it's own economy back to a certain degree of stability?  Is it appropriate for a country to export a potentially life saving drug when it's own population (often just the historically underserved subset of the population) is suffering, just because it could be more profitable to sell it elsewhere? How do politicians justify not accepting the vaccine from political enemies, or putting conditions on providing vaccines to political enemies?

After considering those questions for a moment, I realized that they felt familiar. This winter when Texas was suffering from a severe cold spell (well at least severe for Texas), thousands of Texas residents were without power. It turns out that part of the problem was a shortage of natural gas for generating the power.  Politicians pointed fingers at the regulators from whom they had stripped all regulatory control.  Regulators pointed fingers at distributors and power generators. Power generators pointed fingers at natural gas suppliers, and natural gas suppliers pointed fingers at laws passed by politicians which protected.  All the while, those same natural gas suppliers were selling the natural gas at sky high prices to places outside of Texas.  So again, there is a scarcity of a commodity, and the population in the place that generates the commodity is suffering. While there is a layer of abstraction between the scarcity of the resource in this case and the impact on one's life, that isn't as clear as it is in the case of scarcity of the vaccine, it is a similar moral dilemma.

This same phenomenon exists also in the international oil markets.  Despite the fact that oil prices in the US might surge at points, our oil is not our own, it is a world wide commodity. Oil industry politicians argue that we should open up wilderness lands because we need to secure our oil reserves.  If securing our oil reserves is such a priority, is it right that they allow the oil companies to reap huge profits selling US oil on the open market instead of directing it to where they claim that it is needed to ensure our national security?

So the pattern here is as follows: a region has some commodity, because that commodity is scarce and demand is high within and outside of the region, the commodity is valuable. Does the producer of the commodity have a moral right to choose how they will distribute that commodity?  What role does the region's government have in that decision?  How should the government's investment in the development of the commodity influence the decision?  What other questions are there?  This leads me to the crux of my concern.  Is there a name for this phenomenon?  It seems like one that economists would have had to deal with before. 

Missing a Friend

My friend, Christie, just took leave of Austin on Friday after having been here for a while. It seemed harder to say good-bye this time, and perhaps that is because I had invested so much into her visit. Starting in early December, in preparation for her visit, I went into a self-imposed lockdown [COVID-2019]. Being that she is more cautious than anyone else in any of the non-overlapping circles of friends that I have, I felt a compunction to abide by a higher standard of restraint in my social interactions. She has good reason to be cautious as some of the other folks she is visiting were particularly vulnerable to the virus that has plagued us for the last year. I’ve been cautious, but only because of my own preference for solitude and isolation, and certainly not as strict as she. Anyway, I had invested a lot of energy and focus on being available for Christie, and she stayed longer than she had intended, which I thoroughly enjoyed. So, like any habit, it’s hard to suddenly break the habit of having her around.

I’ve been watching the icon floating along the highway across west Texas trying to predict here path, and imagine her experience. I hate driving, especially the kind of driving that she loves - out on a highway where the world is scrolling slowly past. For her, I think it is cathartic; I’m not sure why. For me it’s painful and tiring. I feel a heightened sense of paranoia, ever vigilant of the cars around me. If I go to fast I become annoyed by the cars ahead of me; if I go to slow I’m annoyed by the cars on my bumper. I get annoyed at people that drive in the wrong lane, or drivers that won’t pass and block the lane. And the frustration isn’t even for me, it’s a frustration for the other drivers around me who I imagine to be annoyed. As cautious as Christie is, I have no idea why those same things don’t bother her, but they don’t seem to. She says that she likes it being out on the highway. It’s driving in the cities that she says annoys her.

Why is this so much on my mind? I have so many other things to think about, but maybe that’s just it. Thinking about Christie is simple, and regular. She doesn’t look to me for answers and she’s good at making it pretty clear what she’s looking for from me. With other friends, I don’t know if they expect me to feel outraged or excited or sad just because they are. I can usually tell what they are feeling, but I rarely actually feel what they are feeling, so it’s difficult for me to know how to react or what to say.

She’s reached Northern California and I’m feeling more comfortable just watching her icon move along the highway. Just past Redding she’ll start seeing some trees, and I know that she feels the same about the trees as I do. There’s something calming like a re-assurance that all is not lost. I get that feel when I open my windows and hear the birds, or find a toad or a lizard in the garden. Seeing that nature is abundant and resilient makes me feel like we haven’t completely destroyed the world.  It makes me feel more secure that she is getting back to Oregon, so that she can see that all is not lost and nature hasn’t gone completely insane even if, as it seems, humanity has.