Scarce Resources

Su Wen carefully put the special ticket into her pocket the next day and went to the county town with Su Qing. It was much faster riding a bicycle there. They made a beeline for the mall as soon as they arrived.

It seemed they had arrived in the nick of time. The store selling sewing machines only had one left in stock.

Initially, the salesperson refused to sell it to them. The whole country was experiencing a shortage of sewing machines. On the black market, sewing machines were going for over 20 times their original price.

Inflation was the result of scarcity.

In the city, men would buy bicycles while women, especially married women, would purchase sewing machines. It was said that the shortage was so bad that no one could buy sewing machines in the big cities, even if they could afford them. The store still had a sewing machine because no one in town could afford it. This was the same situation many other stores in the countryside were facing.