ZDF (public German TV, Channel Two) came up late last night with the forum talk show....Maybrit Illner. It ran roughly an hour, and the topic was this wide range situation entitled "Trump, Corona, and Global Economy".
It was a wide range of guests. Professor Streeck (virologist) was there (probably one of the three most knowledgeable virologist to often appear on TV). Sahra Wagenknecht from the Linke Party was there (always lays out the far-left agenda and does a good job of explaining the shortfalls of the economy). The Federal Minister of the Economy (Pete Altmaier) was on the panel as well, and is fairly smart on the topic of economics. They also brought in Sandra Navidi, who does a fair amount of Wall Street reporting and can talk a good bit on commerce, investing and business.
In blunt terms, it was a good forum crowd, and balanced.
The chief problem? You could tell about halfway through this hour-long program that they'd attempted to weave three topics marginally into this and it wasn't working. They could have done a great show strictly on German business problems within the Covid-19 world. They could have done a decent anti-Trump slam. They could have done a great Coronavirus update segment. But in this case....too many topics spoiled the chat forum.
The chief drama laid out in the show was that the US never got to the perceived level that Germany did....the 'flat curve' situation. But if you follow Covid-19 around Europe....the best example of the US situation....is Sweden.
Sweden more or less, adopted the philosophy of no lockdowns, no serious ban efforts, and putting the health measures to the health community....not the politicians.
Some will say presently that the Sweden view was wrong, but this suggestion in Sweden....hasn't advanced far. In their view, you can't turn the economy on and off. That's pretty much how most of the US states went at this as well.
So I give the forum an 'A' for effort, but it'd be better suited to have just one pure topic area and stick with that for the hour.
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