There are serious concerns in Cuba that they will run out of toilet paper soon:
HAVANA - Cuba, in the grip of a serious economic crisis, is running short of toilet paper and may not get sufficient supplies until the end of the year, officials with state-run companies said on Friday.
Officials said they were lowering the prices of 24 basic goods to help Cubans get through the difficulties provoked in part by the global financial crisis and three destructive hurricanes that struck the island last year.
Cuba's financial reserves have been depleted by increased spending for imports and reduced export income, which has forced the communist-led government to take extraordinary measures to keep the economy afloat.
"The corporation has taken all the steps so that at the end of the year there will be an important importation of toilet paper," an official with state conglomerate Cimex said on state-run Radio Rebelde.
The shipment will enable the state-run company "to supply this demand that today is presenting problems," he said.
Cuba both imports toilet paper and produces its own, but does not currently have enough raw materials to make it, he said.
My reading of this news story [h/t Jack]: the Cuban gubmnt has taken on the role of making many of life's staples easily affordable for the masses. But in doing so, it has run out of money and has opted to spend this money on other "essentials" rather than on toilet paper.When there are shortages, administratively lowering prices will only exacerbate the problem.
Jack says, "The commies always get a bum wrap."
BenS says about the bureaucrats who are clearly not out-performing the market, "Seems right. They ARE paper-pushers after all."
The distortions in the Cuban economy are horrendous. Shortages like this would only rarely arise and certainly would not last five months or so in a market economy, even when a celebrity, as a joke, announces there is a shortage of toilet paper:
1973 - Johnny Carson jokingly told his NBC Tonight Show audience that there was a TP shortage. People horded, draining supplies. Johnny then said, "just kidding," but the store shelves were out of TP, so people thought he was part of some shortage cover-up scam, and they horded some more.
I don't remember that incident, but maybe that's because I was living in Canada at the time. For more on the history of toilet paper, see this and of course the Wikipaedia entry.