The Federation of German Food and Drink Industries (BVE) said the coronavirus pandemic has exposed poor cooking skills among Germans.

"We’ve known for years that cooking competence has drastically declined in Germany,” BVE General Manager Christoph Minhoff told the DPA news agency. . .

"People are rather dramatically forced to rely on their own culinary skills now that the offerings of fast-food restaurants, French fries stands and the Italian restaurant around the corner are not an option,” said Minhoff. "Now people stand in supermarkets and ask themselves, ‘OK how do I make a burger myself?'”Minhoff added.

No speculation on whether a similar situation exists here in the U.S. I do know that friends of my wife's and mine are participating in an e-mail recipe exchange. I've not yet evaluated any of the recipes, save one for scones that looks delicious.

Second:

It is not clear yet whether our response to COVID-19 will turn out to be the single greatest policy mistake in the nation’s history (not counting the Civil War, which shouldn’t be understood as a policy episode exactly), or just one of the top five. We await how soon we shall reopen the country, and what additional steps are taken to get the country moving again. Will we bail out profligate states like Illinois and reward the public employee unions? Will we elect Joe Biden or some other Democratic zombie in November?

It will take a long time to assemble the balance sheet, in part because a full accounting will need to calculate how many deaths from cancer, heart disease and other factors occur because we aren’t treating or screening for those much larger causes of mortality right now.

Another mistake is already apparent. We know from past recessions that extending unemployment insurance—to 99 weeks back in 2009-2010—actually delays recovery, as a lot of marginal workers delay entry back into the workforce, even when jobs come open. At the present moment, we have added an extra $600 a week to standard unemployment benefits, bringing the average weekly check to about $900. It was an understandably impulse amidst these circumstances, but it is already having some ill effect, as reported in yesterday’s note from the Committee to Unleash Prosperity.

There is much more in this excellent article, found here: https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/04/observations-on-the-great-hunkering-12.php I urge you to read it all.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at April 26, 2020 06:45 AM (99EFu)

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