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2 KITCHENWARE NEWS & HOUSEWARES REVIEW • MAY 2020 • www.kitchenwarenews.com PUBLISHER Kimberly Oser SR. ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Jules Denton-Card jules_d@oser.com EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Lorrie Baumann lorrie_b@oser.com ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Anthony Socci anthony_s@oser.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR Jeanie Catron ART DIRECTOR Yasmine Brown GRAPHIC DESIGNER Jonathan Schieffer CUSTOMER SERVICE Susan Stein MANAGER customerservice@oser.com CUSTOMER SERVICE Rae Featherston ASSOCIATE CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Tara Neal CIRCULATION MANAGER Jamie Green jamie_g@oser.com OSER COMMUNICATIONS GROUP KITCHENWARE NEWS & Housewares Review Kitchenware News & Housewares Review is a publication of Oser Communications Group Inc. 1877 N. Kolb Road • Tucson, AZ 85715 520.721.1300 www.kitchenwarenews.com www.oser.com FOUNDER Lee M. Oser Periodicals postage paid at Tucson, AZ and additional mailing office. Kitchenware News & Housewares Review (USPS012-625) is published 7 times per year (Jan., March, May, July, Sept., Nov., and Dec.) by Oser Communications Group, 1877 N. Kolb Road, Tucson, AZ, 85715 520.721.1300. Publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited material or prices quoted in newspaper. Contributors are responsible for proper release of proprietary classified information. ©2019 by Oser Communications Group. All rights reserved Reproduction, in whole or in part, without written permission of the publisher, is expressly prohibited. Back issues, when available, cost $8 each within the past 12 months. Back issue orders must be paid in advance by check. Kitchenware News & Housewares Review is distributed without charge in North America to qualified professionals in the retail and distribution channels of the upscale kitchenware and tabletop trade. For subscriber services, including subscription information, call 520.721.1300. Printed in the USA. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Kitchenware News & Housewares Review, 1877 N. Kolb Road, Tucson, AZ 85715. Dear Friends: What's going on around me has started to feel eerily familiar. Way back in the last century (And did I ever think to hear myself saying those words? No), I was working for a community newspaper in Winnemucca, Nevada, where my beat included the local gold-mining industry. All was well until a bunch of countries whose decisions hadn't seemed to have anything to do with my life decided to get together and form the European Economic Community, which involved mak- ing a new set of rules about how they were going to manage their national treasuries. Since they no longer had to hold gold reserves to back national currencies, a lot of those countries abruptly started dumping gold onto the world market. The price dropped through the floor. In a matter of weeks, the price of a troy ounce of gold dropped from more than $1,000 to under $200. Gold mines that had been profitable at anything over $400 an ounce suddenly became just giant holes in the ground. They started closing one after another. The same miners who'd called me occasionally to report violations of environmental regulations started calling to ask if I knew about any work. Japan's central bank was late to the gold-dumping party, but in a move that looked as if a treasury official there had suddenly decided that gold prices might have no real floor and perhaps he'd better sell his country's reserves while they still had any value at all, Japan sold. I got the news at around 6 a.m., and my first phone call when I got to my desk was to an economist at the University of Nevada who was my go-to any time I wanted to talk about money and gold-mining in the same sentence. He answered my question about the meaning of it all in the way that economics professors do; I wrote the story for that day's front page, and the day went on. A couple of weeks later, I saw a note that this economics professor would be speaking in Elko about the crisis that had overtaken the mining industry. I got in my pickup truck and drove the 120 miles east to hear what he had to say. Before a packed auditorium, he opened his talk with an anecdote about how he'd recently gotten a call from a reporter who'd wanted to ask him about the Central Bank of Japan. "You know you're in trouble when a reporter from northern Nevada is taking an interest in Japan's national monetary policies," he said. Heads turned in my direction. I nodded. We all laughed, and the joke was better for those who knew they were in on it ahead of the pro- fessor. What makes me think about this story is that all of a sudden people who used to want to ask me about what to put on a cheese plate now want to talk to me about what's happening in their grocery stores. They're not asking me about hand-made cheese; they're asking me where I think they might be able to find vegetables. In the United States of America. That's the point that the economics professor was making from that podium all those years ago – you know you're in trouble when people suddenly start asking questions that they never thought they had to ask before. I am so sorry, my friends, that we will not be able to see each other in New York in June and that it will be even longer before I'll feel safe again to hug my way across the exhibit hall the way I used to. I know from experience that trouble on this scale changes lives and disrupts communities. But I also know from bitter experience that survival is possible. Stay safe, everyone! It's my dearest wish to meet you all again on the other side of this. KN Lorrie Baumann, Editorial Director editor from the

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