One of my flying connections co-owns five liquor stores (“package stores” in the local argot) here in the Boston area. His family has been doing this for four generations, which tells you how profitable it is during ordinary times.
How’s business? “We’re up 50 percent since the shutdown,” he said. “The main challenge is getting staff to come in. We’ve put in Plexiglas dividers and cut down on the number of shift changes. We sanitize between every shift, but they’re still afraid.” Was he forced to raise wages? “We gave every salaried employee a 25 percent bonus and are paying the part-timers time and a half.”
I wonder if more Massachusetts residents will die from alcoholism in the years following this shutdown than were saved (if any were saved) by spreading COVID-19 infections over an extra few weeks.
Some recent photos from a walk around Cambridge…
The Black Death caused some people to abandon religion, but Rainbow Flagism has not visibly suffered yet:
The local church:
This gathering place is closed:
Some traditions cannot be abandoned:
In response to demands from the young and mostly invulnerable to COVID-19, I boiled some water and flattened the curve on this linguini:
Watched Fox News. Believed Trump. His personal curve was flattened. RIP. #SidewalkCoronaVictim
Wow. That’s some serious price-gouging by those workers!
Mitch: Excellent point. If a wise central planner can help the inefficient labor market by establishing a minimum wage for various types of work then it would also make sense to establish a maximum wage for each category of worker. (The elites did this after the Black Death had wiped out half of the labor force and market-clearing wages were heading up.)
I assume that some of the increased purchases in the liquor stores is simply a shift from drinking in bars & restaurants to drinking at home. Similar for toilet paper and other groceries. Normally I am out of the house 8-12 hours during the work day. There are now 3 adults working from home in my house. Is it any wonder that we are consuming a lot more toilet paper, coffee etc. in our house? Meanwhile the 250 person office I normally work in is empty with precious rolls of paper, coffee and other items going idle.
Unemployment up. Alcohol sales up. Gun sales up. What could go wrong?
Brian: Guns don’t kill people. Unemployed drunken people with guns kill people!
Unemployed drunken people kill themselves. That is going to be the big death toll from kung flu.
“That is going to be the big death toll from kung flu.”
If the death toll weighs heavily on selfish Boomers, then that’ll open up a lot of job and promotional opportunities for under-employed, student-debt-laden Millennials.