The real dilemma with the current petrol panic

Sgt_Pepper_2

alastairq wrote: »

I've started a new thread here

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3880067

if folk watch and listen to what the psychologist actually says, it appears there is no 'panic' buying, but what we are seeing is a rational response to a a situation.

A rational response to what turns out to be misleading information.

In other words...if an individual in a position of Authority [the prime minister, for example].....tells us we should keep ourselves topped up with fuel, as there may be a delivery issue [strike?]...then, because we need fuel, rationality tells us to go and fill up!

And in doing so, queues form....?


And because 99% of us are in fact rational people [maybe not so on here though?].....there is a 'run' on fuel stocks.


So it wasn't mindless gerbilism on the part of motorists...but the behaviour expected of rational people who are protecting their own interests.


That is why I blame the Government ministers, and NOT Joe Public, for the situation.

Reference to lifeboats and sinking ships is a red herring...but hilites what the psychologist is saying...

If someone in authority says 'abandon ship', then rationality says we must head for the life boats.

Yes, we are a selfish bunch...but we are what we have been made....blame Maggie Thatcher for that!

what's Maggie got to do with this?

mikey72

alastairq wrote: »

I've started a new thread here

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3880067

if folk watch and listen to what the psychologist actually says, it appears there is no 'panic' buying, but what we are seeing is a rational response to a a situation.

A rational response to what turns out to be misleading information.

In other words...if an individual in a position of Authority [the prime minister, for example].....tells us we should keep ourselves topped up with fuel, as there may be a delivery issue [strike?]...then, because we need fuel, rationality tells us to go and fill up!

And in doing so, queues form....?


And because 99% of us are in fact rational people [maybe not so on here though?].....there is a 'run' on fuel stocks.


So it wasn't mindless gerbilism on the part of motorists...but the behaviour expected of rational people who are protecting their own interests.


That is why I blame the Government ministers, and NOT Joe Public, for the situation.

Reference to lifeboats and sinking ships is a red herring...but hilites what the psychologist is saying...

If someone in authority says 'abandon ship', then rationality says we must head for the life boats.

Yes, we are a selfish bunch...but we are what we have been made....blame Maggie Thatcher for that!

I think we're still very similar.
Life boats historically have had orderly queues, with a small amount of pushing and fighting, war time rationing had a black market for those who liked a bit more for themselves, and I don't believe anyone who didn't buy an extra can or two of food, or a pint of milk or a loaf of bread when they finally made it to the shops in the snow last year.

neilmcl

alastairq wrote: »

Would the panic have occurred if the politician concerned had remained silent?

Yes, probably. It doesn't take a lot in this country.

mikey72

neilmcl wrote: »

Yes, probably. It doesn't take a lot in this country.

It doesn't take a lot with any intelligent country.

At least we queue, if it was america, how many would have been shot?
Europe, how many of those queues of cars would be burning?

Initially you stock to beat the predictable panic, then the majority flood in, and the remainder rely on the goverment to ensure stocks are back in place by the time they run out.
(The goverment being the ones responsible for running the country, in this case by having the seven day strike law, then offering the army to supply if the tanker drivers decide to break that law).

So the main question is,
do you buy first,
do you follow the sheep,
do you expect the leaders of the country to bail you out?

(For the record, I stock what I need to.
Fuel, food, power, I can survive two or three day outages in the middle of winter, and I'll keep the fuel tanks full when I need to)

alastairq

I think we're still very similar.
Life boats historically have had orderly queues, with a small amount of pushing and fighting, war time rationing had a black market for those who liked a bit more for themselves, and I don't believe anyone who didn't buy an extra can or two of food, or a pint of milk or a loaf of bread when they finally made it to the shops in the snow last year.

Historically, people were more overtly disciplined back then.....

Imagine trying to re-introduce National service today?


For sure, we top up with essentials...when adverse weather, or other, conditions threaten.

This is rational behaviour, not panic.

When I was a yoof, back in the '50's and 60's last century, the greatest prevailing fear within the population was Nuclear War.

When world political situations took turns for the worse, folk stockpiled tinned foods and dug nuclear shelters in their back gardens.

Stupid?

Or, rational precaution to aid survival?

A very real fear during the Cuban Missile Crisis.


We turn to personal rational behaviour when we perceive that socially we will receive no help whatsoever.

In other words, we display this behaviour because we do not TRUST the Government, or Society in which we live, to deal with the situation for us.

We do not display the disciplined behaviour of old, because we no longer have trust in Authority.

We are more aware of the realities........Cameron is no Winston Churchill, after all.

alastairq

what's Maggie got to do with this?

her policies and ideals helped found the modern, self-centred [me, me , me, and sod the rest of you] society we have today.

redux

Sgt_Pepper wrote: »

what's Maggie got to do with this?

Perhaps rather more than you might realise.

Read this article by Charles Moore, former editor of the Daily Telegraph, so certainly not prone to left wing bias

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/9176237/Even-Im-starting-to-wonder-what-do-this-lot-know-about-anything.html

But now that I have heard the Conservatives’ private explanation, which is being handed down to constituency associations by MPs, I begin to feel angry.

The private message is as follows. “This is our Thatcher moment. In order to defeat the coming miners’ strike, she stockpiled coal. When the strike came, she weathered it, and the Labour Party, tarred by the strike, was humiliated. In order to defeat the coming fuel drivers’ strike, we want supplies of petrol stockpiled. Then, if the strike comes, we will weather it, and Labour, in hock to the Unite union, will be blamed.”

There is a key difference which ministers have not spotted. When Mrs Thatcher piled up the coal at power stations until the strike began in 1984, she was not inconveniencing the public. In 2012, the Coalition is trying to press-gang the public, without saying so, into its political battles. All those people queuing on the forecourts were pawns in a Government-organised blame-game.

So it seems that in some immature union-bashing fantasy left over from when they were at school some ministers have been trying to compare themselves to Thatcher, and were quite deliberate in their intent to foist their cynical and incompetent wizzo social engineering experiment on all of us.

Besides what Moore says, something else they've overlooked is that at their peak the coal stockpiles were almost a year's worth.

After the event, Francis Maude has been said to have made a bad assumption on the sizes of jerry cans. Has he actually got a couple of IBCs in his garage?

vax2002

This is a survival instinct that if we lacked we would be extinct.
Sure some will always sit back and watch the scramble for whats left, but they will be the first to die as well.

Strider590

vax2002 wrote: »

This is a survival instinct that if we lacked we would be extinct.
Sure some will always sit back and watch the scramble for whats left, but they will be the first to die as well.

Sure it is.

I'm not saying that people are idiots for panicking, im saying that people are idiots for being so easily lead by the media INTO mass panic......

I saw what was happening and I filled up (when I needed to anyway) 1 day before the call to panic was announced in the tabloid press.

mikey72

alastairq wrote: »

.........When I was a yoof, back in the '50's and 60's last century, the greatest prevailing fear within the population was Nuclear War.

When world political situations took turns for the worse, folk stockpiled tinned foods and dug nuclear shelters in their back gardens.

Stupid?

Or, rational precaution to aid survival?

A very real fear during the Cuban Missile Crisis..

And all good government advice you followed then.

So, were we better, worse, or really exactly the same.