Diapers on Weekends

Originally blogged: Saturday, February 25, 2012

The weekend is finally here and that means the Weddings! Travel!! The Ethicist!!! The Magazine!!!! The Magazine, you guys, the Magazine! Oh how I love you, The New York Times. Nevertheless, I think we need to have a quick word about Jack Ewing’s article of February 22, 2012, In Germany, a Limp Domestic Economy Stifled by Regulation. First off, there are some fascinating things going on in German politics right now. The German President, Christian Wulff, (and yes there is a president in addition to the Chancellor) just resigned in disgrace. A money scandal, a cover up scandal, possible immunity – all that usual sleezy politician stuff. The man who will probably be the new President, Joachim Gauck, is a former Lutheran Minister from the former East Germany whose father was sent to a secret Siberian gulag from 1951 to 1955. Gauck himself spoke out against Communism from the pulpit. He also has been separated from his wife, the mother of his four children, since the early 1990s and for over ten years has lived with his girlfriend.
        Juicy stuff there, people – politics, sex, money, religion, Siberian gulag. And yes, The New York Times is covering it, but only with a few brief paragraphs that you have to search all over the website to find. Instead, they shove Ewing’s piece, In Germany, a Limp Domestic Economy Stifled by Regulation, up to the top of the website all day with a big enticing color photograph of delicious bread. This article is about supermarket opening times. Yup – we’re not going to have a big article with fancy color photo about the German President resigning, we’re going to designate a long article and comments section to consumer regulations in Germany, most notably supermarket opening times. And the commenters are losing their shit over it.
       For a brief background into grocery shopping in Germany, it’s almost exactly like grocery shopping in the United States but with a few subtle differences. Assuming you work a relatively typical schedule, the grocery stores are open before you leave for work and are closed after you get home. They just aren’t open on Sundays. After you move from the United States, it takes you a few weeks, and then you get used to it. You do your grocery shopping, you just don’t do it on Sundays. If you are too incredibly stupid to shop in advance, you can always go out to eat, go to one of the Kiosks that are open longer hours but have limited options, or go to the stores in the train station that are always open on Sundays. Honestly, it’s really not that big of a deal.
         However, according to Ewing’s article: Germany could add about 10 percent to growth over the next decade if it removed barriers to competition and other inefficiencies, according to the O.E.C.D. Surprisingly, the untapped potential in Germany was almost as high as that in Italy and higher than that in Spain, according to the O.E.C.D., an indication that the German domestic economy is not as superior to its southern neighbors as is often assumed. Ok, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, I’m not sure what regulations and inefficiencies that you are talking about here. It would seem to me that Germany is the least of your problems. But according to Ewing, the German economy would grow if Supermarkets were open on Sundays.
       Herr Ewing, I do not have a doctorate in economics, but I am a woman who has to buy groceries so that my family can eat. So, let me be clear about something: I buy the same amount of groceries, I just don’t buy them on Sunday. We still eat on Sunday, we just don’t buy groceries then. We do not go hungry on Sunday. The people in Germany buy the same amount of groceries, just over the period of 6 days instead of 7. It’s actually MORE efficient. The supermarkets sell the same amount of groceries, but they don’t have to pay to keep the store open on Sunday. All this extra efficiency would be a problem if supermarkets really weren’t open for enough hours to allow all working adults to do their shopping. But that isn’t the case. Because, kiddo, if you can’t get your grocery shopping done before 11 pm Monday through Friday or from 9 am to 5 pm Saturday, you’ve got problems that Sunday grocery store hours can’t solve.
       You should see some of these comments on the article. Some commenters believe it is their God given right to be able to buy diapers on Sunday and that these policies infringe on personal freedoms. Seriously? You have to buy diapers on Sunday? You woke up Sunday morning and your child needed diapers for the very first time? I am trying to wrap my head around this situation. You wake up on a Sunday morning, ready for your cup of coffee and your copy of The New York Times, and all of a sudden, your child – who had never needed diapers before – needs diapers! Oh no! Diaper emergency!!! Let’s assume that there is somebody too out of it to know enough to stock up on a few extra diapers the other six days of the week, and that person can’t find a few hidden diapers stashed away in the bottom of the diaper bag, and that person doesn’t have neighbors or friends with little kids then – heaven help us – that person might have to go to a kiosk or a grocery store in the train station. Sure, that person might have to pay at a bit of a markup at a kiosk or be a bit inconvenienced by going down to the train station, but that’s what you get for not being prepared. God have mercy on our souls!!!!
       And all this brings us to pharmacies. Pharmacies are not mentioned in the aforementioned article, but they are relevant to the discussion. In cities in the US, you typically have no problem finding a pharmacy open 24 hours. Pharmacies are practically on every corner, many with very long hours, and many open for 24 hours a day. In Germany, there is one pharmacy in each city district that will be open for 24 hours. They trade off. One week it will be one pharmacy, the next week it will be a different one. There is a sign in every pharmacy window telling you where to go if you need your pills at 3:00 am. As far as I can tell, this is a win-win situation. Pharmacists get to work nicer hours, and everybody is taken care of in the event of an emergency. The vast majority of people who need medication can get it during normal business hours. If someone is really, truly sick during off hours, then he or she often genuinely needs to be in an urgent care medical facility. Every citizen and legal resident of Germany has excellent health insurance, so it would never be a financial hardship to go to the emergency room or call an ambulance. But I know there are people, I have been one of these people, who are too sick to wait for business hours but aren’t sick enough to go to the hospital. I understand. And those people will probably be a bit inconvenienced having to travel a little further to the one pharmacy in their district that is open 24 hours. Yes, it’s a pain for those people, but those people and those circumstances are few and far between. And everybody else benefits the rest of the time. The pharmacy staff doesn’t have to work longer hours, the pharmacy saves money not keeping the lights on all night, and prices on ibuprofen go down.
       So, my dear The New York Times, I know that in New York City, you can get just about anything any time of the day or night. But it turns out that you can have a healthy economy and keep everybody covered in an emergency WITHOUT a 24 hour all things to all people store on every urban street corner. New York is the city that never sleeps, but in Germany, everybody gets a good night’s sleep except for a few brave souls keep their storefronts open – just in case.