What is rationing: concept, definition, types, methods and formulas for calculations

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-02 13:48

What is rationing? This is a controlled distribution of limited resources, goods or services, or an artificial reduction in demand. Rationing revises the size of the ration, which is the allowed part of the resources allocated per day or some other period of time. There are many forms of this control, and in Western civilization people experience some of them in their daily lives without realizing it.

Reasons

Rationing is often done to keep the price below the equilibrium price determined by the process of supply and demand in a free market. Thus, such a process can complement the control over the cost of goods or services. And yet, what is normalization? An example of a process under rising prices occurred in various countries where gasoline was controlled during the 1973 energy crisis.

The reason for establishinglower than what the market would understand, it could be that there is a shortage that would result in a very high market price. This arrangement of affairs, especially when necessary, is undesirable for those who cannot afford them. However, traditional economists argue that high prices reduce wastage of scarce resources and also encourage more production.

What is rationing?

This food stamp process is just one type of non-price distribution. For example, scarce products can be rationed using queues. Today, this can be seen in amusement parks where you have to pay an entrance fee and then take any ride "for free". In addition, in the absence of tolls, access to roads is also determined on a first-come, first-served basis.

Authorities who impose rationing and pricing often have to deal with goods illegally sold on the black market.

Civil distribution

In wartime, such rationing was introduced for ordinary people, which made it possible to provide the army with the necessary food, while not forgetting about the population.

For example, coupons were given to each person, allowing him to purchase a certain amount of food each month. Rationing often includes food and other necessities for which there is a shortage, including materials intendedfor military action. These are, for example, such as rubber tires, leather boots, clothing and fuel.

Rationing principles

Rationing food and water may also become necessary during an emergency such as a natural disaster or a terrorist attack. The federal agency has developed rationing guidelines for food and water supplies when replacements are not available. Standards require everyone to have at least 1 liter of fluid per day, and more for children, breastfeeding mothers, and the sick.

Origin

Military sieges often led to shortages of food and other basic supplies. Under such circumstances, the rations given to an individual are often determined by age, sex, race, or social status. During the siege of Lucknow (part of the Indian Rebellion of 1857), the woman received three-quarters of the food that the man got, and the children were content with only half. During the Siege of Ladysmith in the early stages of the Boer War in 1900, white adults received the same food rations as the soldiers, while children received only half of it. There was much less food for Indians and blacks.

The first modern estimate rationing systems were introduced during the First World War. In Germany, which was suffering from the consequences of the British blockade, the system was introduced in 1914 and steadily expanded in subsequent years as the situation worsened. Although the UK did not suffer from a shortagefood, as sea lanes remained open to imports, panic buying toward the end of the war prompted the calculation of rationing first sugar and then meat. It is said that in large part this was beneficial to the he alth of the country, through the "equalization of the consumption of basic foodstuffs."

In the Russian Empire, the war required a centralized supply of food to the 15 millionth army and a number of provinces. In August 1915, a year after the start of the war, the government of the empire was forced to take a number of non-market measures - a "Special Meeting on Food" was established with the authority to first establish marginal, and then firm purchase prices, to requisition food.

From the spring of 1916, a rationing system for food was introduced in a number of provinces (for sugar, since Polish sugar factories were in the zone of occupation and hostilities).

1929–1935

In 1929, the liquidation of the limited market economy that existed in the USSR between 1921 and 1929 led to food shortages and the spontaneous introduction of technical rationing in most Soviet industrial centers. In 1931, the Politburo introduced a unified distribution system for basic goods.

Rationing was applied only to people employed in state-owned enterprises and their families. Such social categories as people without political rights were deprived of their diet. The rationing system was divided into four rates, which differed in the size of the food basket, with lower levels notallowed to obtain such basic products as meat and fish. The standard existed until 1935.

World War II

During this period, ration stamps and coupons were often used. These were redeemable coupons, and each family was given a certain amount depending on the number of people, the age of the children, and income. The Ministry of Food improved the rationing process in the early 1940s so that the population would not go hungry when imports were severely restricted and local production was suffering due to the large number of men fighting in the war.

At this time, the research work of Elsie Widdowson and Robert McCans in the Department of Experimental Medicine at the University of Cambridge was founded. They worked on the chemical composition of the human body and the nutritional value of various types of flour used to make bread. Widdowson also studied the effect of baby food on human growth. They recognized the effects of lack of s alt and water, and drew up the first tables to compare the different nutritional values of foods before and after cooking. Their book McCance and Widdowson has become known as the dietitian's bible and is the foundation of modern thinking about food.

Gasoline was the first controlled commodity in the US. On January 8, 1940, bacon, butter, and sugar were rationed. This was followed by diet plans for meat, tea, jam, biscuits, breakfast cereal, cheese, eggs, lard, milk, canned and dried fruit. The rules of rationing also comprehended the USSR. From 1941 to 1947 the country could not recover from the post-war actions, thereforethe card structure was preserved. Many people grew their own vegetables, inspired by the government's highly successful motivation.

Restructuring

The last, 12th five-year plan, which fell on this period, ended in uncontrolled economic degradation, which partly led to various methods of rationing in all union republics.

Money limit

Perestroika produced a unique type of rationing. In 1990, Belarus introduced the "Consumer Card", which is a sheet of paper divided into tear-off coupons with various assigned monetary values: 20, 75, 100, 200 and 300 rubles. These coupons were needed in addition to real money when buying certain categories of consumer goods. Coupons had little to no security and could be easily counterfeited on modern color copiers. They were few in the Soviet Union and were under strict control of the KGB, which to some extent limited, but did not eliminate forgeries. Coupons were distributed at workplaces along with salaries and had to have an accounting stamp and signature. This was an attempt to protect against speculation, especially from overseas resales.

XXI century

Today, the concept of rationing also includes labor. It, in turn, is divided into several different types:

• Norms of time.
• Workouts.
• Service.
• Numbers.
• Drivability.
• Rated tasks.

Specialimportance, in production, is of the first kind. Formula for calculating the norm of time:

N_vr=T_p.z+T_op+T o.r.m_+Toff.l_+Tp.t

where H_{vr is what you need to find.}

T_{p.z - time of preparatory and final work.}

T_{op - operational production.}

T_{o.r.m - time to service the workplace.}

T_{ot.l - rest breaks and personal needs.}

T_{p.t - rest time provided by technology.}

Third value

Technical regulation establishes the norm of time. That is, the hours it would take to complete a set procedure under specific business circumstances.

According to the norm of time, the procedure calculates the costs of the entire program for the production of elements, determine the required number of workers, machines, the number of electricity, determine the need for grinding wheels, etc.

In accordance with the norms, an industrial design of the site, workshop, plant as a whole is drawn up. Depending on the expenditure of time, the remuneration of workers is carried out. Hours spent on work characterize productivity. The less time spent on one operation, the more parts will be processed per hour or shift, i.e., the higher this indicator.

Hours of processing a batch of parts in mass production are determined by the formula

T_part=T_pcsn +T_pz,

where Т_{part is the normtime per game, in minutes.}

T_{pcs - piece production in the same unit.}

n - the number of parts in the batch, in pieces.

T_{pz - preparatory-final time, in minutes.}

From this formula, you can determine the hours for the manufacture of one part, if you divide the right and left parts by the number of units in the lot.

Tanya Savicheva's diary

An 11-year-old girl made notes about the starvation death of her sister, then her grandmother, brother, uncle and mother. The last three notes read "The Savichevs died", "Everyone died" and "Only Tanya remained." She died of progressive dystrophy shortly after the siege.

In the Soviet Union, food was rationed from 1941 to 1947. In particular, the daily bread ration in besieged Leningrad was initially set at 800 grams. By the end of 1941, these figures were reduced to 250 for workers and 125 for everyone else, which led to an increase in deaths from starvation. Beginning in 1942, the daily bread ration was increased to 350 grams for workers and 200 for everyone else. One of the documents from that period is the diary of Tanya Savicheva, who recorded the deaths of every member of her family during the siege.