I really like the term Robert Evans used in the initial run of It Could Happen Here from back in 2017 or so, he called this “the crumbles.”
He pointed out that it won’t happen like “one day, there’s no coffee at the supermarket,” it will be more like there’s less and less back stock on the shelves, and then one day you’re getting something and see a fight over the last bag on the shelf that day.
“One day a bridge collapsed, and no one came to fix it.”
There is possibly apocryphal story that when the Roman empire collapsed, it retreated slowly. You knew when it was gone from the practical details.
There is a subreddit called “shortages” on that other site, and the top posts right now are chips/ram (predictably) but also medicine, water, food, labor and basic equipment. Makes you wish a toilet paper shortage was your biggest problem.
Not yet.
