Finally got around to checking on our local toilet paper situation today since we were running low, and I started hearing that it was harder to come by these past few days. Half the shelves were already empty by the time I got to the grocery store - pretty much everyone I saw leaving the store carried at least one pack - just past 8 this morning. It's fair to say it won't last the day.

Well, I ended grabbing 2 12-packs of the better quality kind - you get what you pay for when buying cheap TP - mainly because my housemate is currently housebound after a recent knee surgery so I'm the only one who can get it (via bus only, too), not to mention the fact that last time I checked on Friday TP was all out of stock at all online retailers. I just wanted to make sure we were all set for a little while since I'm not at all trusting of my fellow man to act rationally and/or logically. *le sigh*

I wonder if the toilet paper is DRM free...

You mean:
dirty rotten manure - free? I'd rather think not. ;)

There ought to be no shortage of toilet paper so long as tabloids are still in print.

While TP might be valuable, there are alternatives. For example, leaves, or other byproducts of nature, or even bare hands followed by sufficient cleaning (and you should wash your hands well, anyway). Using TP as currency would be stupid. It's like the B Ark people using leaves as currency. So, Fallout didn't get it entirely wrong. However, once you can manufacture goods again, it's no longer useful to use previously manufactured products as currency (especially one that can be easily mass produced without oversight). Thus, Fallout 2 got it right by dropping bottle caps, and Fallout 3 once again got it wrong by reintroducing bottle caps. Granted, there was no established government to back any particular currency on the east coast, but bottle caps only made sense early (and maybe even 84 years was too much).

As to the TP panic: I was surprised this weekend to see both the grocery store and Target out of TP and canned goods. I suspect I will soon have to join the hoarders in order to have anything in a few weeks. By then I suppose the economy will be in shambles as well. Or is it already? Should I even be buying games any more? Probably not. I will, anyway, though, using the same logic people use to waste money on cigarettes and alcohol even when they can't really afford it.

Rationing is the logical response, entirely justified and necessary, ensuring that the largest number of people have their needs met. Raising prices is the "market" response, as in the one favoring the few at the top and taking a dump (pun intended) on the rest. If at current prices and no rationing you have a small number of people with more money available and who're fast enough grab nearly everything, with high prices you just have those with more money available getting nearly everything, reducing the importance of even being there faster, so someone of lesser means won't even have that opportunity anymore.

The logical response to what end goal?

I know what the implications are, I just don't share your views and values at all. Why should get there faster be valued over monetary assets? Not saying it's wrong, just arbitrary in the sense that it might as well be supplemented with a burping contest to even it out even more since it might be unfair to slow people. How stores wish to manage their supplies is ultimately up to them though, in the end, it's the same amount of paper that goes around until more is produced.

To the end goal of having the needs of as many as possible met, as I said.
True, speed and wealth are arbitrary and not criteria that should be used to determine who can have the goods, but having two criteria, in an either/or scenario, at least gives more people a chance than one. Of course, as I said, neither should matter, and the goods should be rationed so there will be enough to meet the actual needs of all first of all, then see what, if anything, is left for the desires of some.