Expats don't stockpile

I got a call from my wife who was in Makro, saying everybody was buying up everything -- rice, sugar, cooking oil and milk. Checkout lines were so long that people were kept waiting one hour. She asked me what she should do. "Nothing," I said. "What if we run out of food?" I explained that it was irrational, that we can't act with foodstuffs the same irrational way the market reacted to the dollar. "We can eat rambutan from the trees in our compound," I joked.

Besides, the majority of the population does not have cash ready to stockpile. Every developing country's emerging middle class is insecure, I told her. This is only a small fraction of the population making a run on stores.

We had eight years in Africa and faced monthly inflation of 50 percent, not to mention that in 1989 the government froze all our money. We can't run just because someone started a rumor. What if all the newcomers around here see me with a gallon of oil under my arm? These people, who came from one of those theme parks in Europe or North America, are going to start. Last Monday shelves began to be refilled. In Brazil, after the new year, shops have sales to reduce their inventory. Here, people spread rumors to empty the warehouses.

OSVALDO COELHO

Jakarta