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I didn’t say that at all. I said that due to recent policy decisions, the government has incentivized workers not to work. In a normal free market economy, whe

I didn’t say that at all. I said that due to recent policy decisions, the government has incentivized workers not to work. In a normal free market economy, when people get laid off, their labor is reallocated to a different sector in the economy. Now there’s no reason to look for another job, if your rent is guaranteed and the government checks come in every month for four months on top of unemployment.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
save_ferris 7y ago
> In a normal free market economy What exactly leads you to believe that we’re currently in a situation for the free market to prevail while millions of Americans can’t leave their houses and the infection rate of COVID continues to double every three days? The last time we saw labor contraction like this was during the Great Depression, when millions starved and the economy took years to recover. What are people supposed to do when there are no jobs for them and they can’t leave the house? If there’s no work to be done for the next three months and no income coming in, what do these millions of workers do, starve?
- 0x8BADF00D 7y ago
  > The last time we saw labor contraction like this was during the Great Depression, when millions starved and the economy took years to recover. What are people supposed to do when there are no jobs for them and they can’t leave the house? What do you think they did in the Great Depression? WW2? They didn’t sit there and wait for the government to bail them out. They saved for a rainy day. The US govt borrowed money from the citizens to fight WW2. But thanks to QE infinity, the government has disincentivized and fucked over savers as well. Big surprise, anytime the government gets involved they fuck it up.
  - earthshot 7y ago
    Complaints about saving are the most absurd thing ever. Rich people were getting free money by doing nothing and taking no risk. Now they're getting less free money by doing nothing and taking no risk. It's crazy that you want to enact policies which would very literally kill thousands of people just because you want rich people (who don't need more money) to get more free unearned money. In a truly free market wealthy people would have to pay vault, security, and insurance fees to maintain a riskless balance.
  - yodon 7y ago
    You may want to read up on depression-era programs like the WPA and the invention of social security.
  - eganist 7y ago
    > They didn’t sit there and wait for the government to bail them out. The government in the 30s took on trillions (in modern dollars) in debt to do just that; the only difference being they put people to work by pouring money into infrastructure projects because people could actually work without isolation. The difference here is that the money isn't going into infrastructure, it's going into basic necessities and healthcare; people are still being put to work as you can tell from the ramp-up in hiring for delivery, cargo, logistics, etc. The velocity of money hasn't stopped - if anything, it's actually increased in certain areas of spending. The problem here is unique for almost everyone alive today: entire quadrants of the economy have ground to a halt because of an external stressor. TL;DR: your understanding of the new deal needs work.
jwagenet 7y ago
Other sectors aren’t available for labor reallocation. People are losing jobs in all the sectors that will take them and those sectors are forced to be closed or limited for the foreseeable future.
giulianob 7y ago
Have you actually looked at how much you make on unemployment? I'm in Florida and you get $275/week. The federal govt is giving an extra $600/week for 4 months. So you'd be making $3500/month for 4 months before it drops to $1100/month. Also consider that you have additional expenses like health insurance if you're not employed. It's basically buying people a little bit of time to find another job before they go back to regular unemployment wages which I consider below poverty line.
wpietri 7y ago
You really believe money is the only reason people work? (If you need a hint here, look at all the medical workers working crazy shifts now. You think they're getting overtime and danger pay commensurate with the risk?)
diob 7y ago
Let's suppose you're right, and that 100% (or even 50%) of those getting unemployment for the next 4 months will sit around since getting a job might end up meaning less money. Genuinely curious what you would want to do instead? Are you thinking UBI, so that even if they get a job they still receive the other benefits. I could get behind that. Is that what you're thinking though?
danso 7y ago
Given that affordable health insurance is often tied to employment, I don’t really see how you can assume people have “no reason to look for another job”. Nevermind the long term damage that employment gaps can do to your career prospects.
- onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
  Does anyone know if there was anything in the stimulus bill for health insurance for people on unemployment?
Spartan-S63 7y ago
Sure, you're not wrong about this, however, given the situation with COVID-19, we don't really want people to be out there working. We want them working from home if they can or not working at all. If that's the case, the government has to kick in to support those people. We're making a public health decision that adversely affects the economy but not making this decision is likely worse than the where we're at and where we're headed. Perhaps this will be a lesson to us as a people, a nation, and all companies who operate to not take such a narrow view.
rilindo 7y ago
> Now there’s no reason to look for another job, if your rent is guaranteed and the government checks come in every month for four months on top of unemployment. That is actually an ideal outcome, because that would slow down the disease transmission significantly.
throwaway1777 7y ago
This is a dumb take. All these people were working and wanted to keep working until coronavirus lockdowns took their jobs. I’m sure most of them want to find new jobs but good luck because almost no one is hiring in this environment.
earthshot 7y ago
^ this is a strong argument for a 100% estate tax, as well as for exceptionally high capital gains taxes. After all, people with inherited wealth or unearned income will have no incentive to work otherwise. A such, we MUST strip them of their assets so that they may become productive parts of society.
- stallmanite 7y ago
  How have I heard probably thousands of arguments about this topic and never heard this formulation? Brilliant!
ekidd 7y ago
> I said that due to recent policy decisions, the government has incentivized workers not to work. On some level, isn't that almost the goal? If the coronavirus hits us at full speed, the estimates I've seen suggest that the loss of life would remove tens of trillions of dollars of future economic capacity. (And also, you know, kill people.) Until we figure out how to keep this under control (like Singapore) or slow it enough to provide adequate medical care for the infected, the goal is to get people to stay home. So it almost makes sense to incentivise people not to work. The last thing we want right now is everybody out and mingling. But we have to use this time well. We need to increase medical capacity, research treatments, build ventilators, run serological tests for antibodies, build contact tracing infrastructure, care for patients, make masks and PPE, and a hundred other things.
ta2987 7y ago
That's a dumb take.
mirimir 7y ago
> I said that due to recent policy decisions, the government has incentivized workers not to work. That's one way to look at it. An arguably more accurate interpretation is that few workers laid off due to Covid-19 are likely to find remote work. And that means testing wouldn't be worth the expense. There is increased demand for delivery drivers and truckers, I admit. So I agree that these policies may increase wage rates for such categories. But that's not so horrible.
anigbrowl 7y ago
In a normal free market economy Which does not obtain during a demand shock. I really wish people would pay more attention to the fine print.
dragonwriter 7y ago
> In a normal free market economy Free market economies are an analytical fiction, not a normal thing at all. > Now there’s no reason to look for another job, if your rent is guaranteed and the government checks come in every month for four months on top of unemployment. Both the base and supplemental unemployment still require you to be actively seeking work and to not reject offered work to continue to receive the checks, so there is, in fact, a very good reason to look for work.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

save_ferris 7y ago

> In a normal free market economy What exactly leads you to believe that we’re currently in a situation for the free market to prevail while millions of Americans can’t leave their houses and the infection rate of COVID continues to double every three days? The last time we saw labor contraction like this was during the Great Depression, when millions starved and the economy took years to recover. What are people supposed to do when there are no jobs for them and they can’t leave the house? If there’s no work to be done for the next three months and no income coming in, what do these millions of workers do, starve?

0x8BADF00D 7y ago
> The last time we saw labor contraction like this was during the Great Depression, when millions starved and the economy took years to recover. What are people supposed to do when there are no jobs for them and they can’t leave the house? What do you think they did in the Great Depression? WW2? They didn’t sit there and wait for the government to bail them out. They saved for a rainy day. The US govt borrowed money from the citizens to fight WW2. But thanks to QE infinity, the government has disincentivized and fucked over savers as well. Big surprise, anytime the government gets involved they fuck it up.
- earthshot 7y ago
  Complaints about saving are the most absurd thing ever. Rich people were getting free money by doing nothing and taking no risk. Now they're getting less free money by doing nothing and taking no risk. It's crazy that you want to enact policies which would very literally kill thousands of people just because you want rich people (who don't need more money) to get more free unearned money. In a truly free market wealthy people would have to pay vault, security, and insurance fees to maintain a riskless balance.
- yodon 7y ago
  You may want to read up on depression-era programs like the WPA and the invention of social security.
- eganist 7y ago
  > They didn’t sit there and wait for the government to bail them out. The government in the 30s took on trillions (in modern dollars) in debt to do just that; the only difference being they put people to work by pouring money into infrastructure projects because people could actually work without isolation. The difference here is that the money isn't going into infrastructure, it's going into basic necessities and healthcare; people are still being put to work as you can tell from the ramp-up in hiring for delivery, cargo, logistics, etc. The velocity of money hasn't stopped - if anything, it's actually increased in certain areas of spending. The problem here is unique for almost everyone alive today: entire quadrants of the economy have ground to a halt because of an external stressor. TL;DR: your understanding of the new deal needs work.

jwagenet 7y ago

Other sectors aren’t available for labor reallocation. People are losing jobs in all the sectors that will take them and those sectors are forced to be closed or limited for the foreseeable future.

giulianob 7y ago

Have you actually looked at how much you make on unemployment? I'm in Florida and you get $275/week. The federal govt is giving an extra $600/week for 4 months. So you'd be making $3500/month for 4 months before it drops to $1100/month. Also consider that you have additional expenses like health insurance if you're not employed. It's basically buying people a little bit of time to find another job before they go back to regular unemployment wages which I consider below poverty line.

wpietri 7y ago

You really believe money is the only reason people work? (If you need a hint here, look at all the medical workers working crazy shifts now. You think they're getting overtime and danger pay commensurate with the risk?)

diob 7y ago

Let's suppose you're right, and that 100% (or even 50%) of those getting unemployment for the next 4 months will sit around since getting a job might end up meaning less money. Genuinely curious what you would want to do instead? Are you thinking UBI, so that even if they get a job they still receive the other benefits. I could get behind that. Is that what you're thinking though?

danso 7y ago

Given that affordable health insurance is often tied to employment, I don’t really see how you can assume people have “no reason to look for another job”. Nevermind the long term damage that employment gaps can do to your career prospects.

onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
Does anyone know if there was anything in the stimulus bill for health insurance for people on unemployment?

Spartan-S63 7y ago

Sure, you're not wrong about this, however, given the situation with COVID-19, we don't really want people to be out there working. We want them working from home if they can or not working at all. If that's the case, the government has to kick in to support those people. We're making a public health decision that adversely affects the economy but not making this decision is likely worse than the where we're at and where we're headed. Perhaps this will be a lesson to us as a people, a nation, and all companies who operate to not take such a narrow view.

rilindo 7y ago

> Now there’s no reason to look for another job, if your rent is guaranteed and the government checks come in every month for four months on top of unemployment. That is actually an ideal outcome, because that would slow down the disease transmission significantly.

throwaway1777 7y ago

This is a dumb take. All these people were working and wanted to keep working until coronavirus lockdowns took their jobs. I’m sure most of them want to find new jobs but good luck because almost no one is hiring in this environment.

earthshot 7y ago

^ this is a strong argument for a 100% estate tax, as well as for exceptionally high capital gains taxes. After all, people with inherited wealth or unearned income will have no incentive to work otherwise. A such, we MUST strip them of their assets so that they may become productive parts of society.

stallmanite 7y ago
How have I heard probably thousands of arguments about this topic and never heard this formulation? Brilliant!

ekidd 7y ago

> I said that due to recent policy decisions, the government has incentivized workers not to work. On some level, isn't that almost the goal? If the coronavirus hits us at full speed, the estimates I've seen suggest that the loss of life would remove tens of trillions of dollars of future economic capacity. (And also, you know, kill people.) Until we figure out how to keep this under control (like Singapore) or slow it enough to provide adequate medical care for the infected, the goal is to get people to stay home. So it almost makes sense to incentivise people not to work. The last thing we want right now is everybody out and mingling. But we have to use this time well. We need to increase medical capacity, research treatments, build ventilators, run serological tests for antibodies, build contact tracing infrastructure, care for patients, make masks and PPE, and a hundred other things.

ta2987 7y ago

That's a dumb take.

mirimir 7y ago

> I said that due to recent policy decisions, the government has incentivized workers not to work. That's one way to look at it. An arguably more accurate interpretation is that few workers laid off due to Covid-19 are likely to find remote work. And that means testing wouldn't be worth the expense. There is increased demand for delivery drivers and truckers, I admit. So I agree that these policies may increase wage rates for such categories. But that's not so horrible.

anigbrowl 7y ago

In a normal free market economy Which does not obtain during a demand shock. I really wish people would pay more attention to the fine print.

dragonwriter 7y ago

> In a normal free market economy Free market economies are an analytical fiction, not a normal thing at all. > Now there’s no reason to look for another job, if your rent is guaranteed and the government checks come in every month for four months on top of unemployment. Both the base and supplemental unemployment still require you to be actively seeking work and to not reject offered work to continue to receive the checks, so there is, in fact, a very good reason to look for work.