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This is an economic shock unlike what any current unemployment infrastructure in the US is designed for. What we want, as much as possible, is a total economic
by scott_s 7y ago
This is an economic shock unlike what any current unemployment infrastructure in the US is designed for. What we want, as much as possible, is a total economic pause. Paying companies to keep their employees on payroll would come closer to accomplishing that than mass layoffs. With mass layoffs, there is no un-pause. We will start out in the middle of a depression.
- tathougies 7y agoA depression in which everyone is going to be rehired the moment business is allowed to operate? Of course there's an un-pause. Companies know who they fired. They'll just call people up and rehire.
- scott_s 7y agoThey likely won't be rehired; some of those business will not exist. Some companies will not try to hire everyone back. And with so many people out of work, there will be less economic activity, period. If the government had funded companies to keep their employees on payroll, we could have an un-pause scenario. We are unlikely to have that after the mass layoffs. The economy is a system, and will be in a state with much less employment and money flowing.
- tathougies 7y agoYeah, it'll take time to ramp up, but it'll ramp up.
- CydeWeys 7y agoNot nearly as fast as if everyone simply kept the job they already had, and go back to it immediately upon things open back up.
- tomrod 7y agosum_{n=1}^{\infty} (1/2)^n approaches 1, eventually. Rather than waiting for an infinite time horizon and theoretical rampup, the better approach would be to build a bridge for a bit.
- asdff 7y agoThis isn't going to happen outside of rare cases. Lots of companies are not just laying people off, they've folded entirely. People I personally know work for companies that have closed shop entirely in recent weeks. Those jobs are gone. Of course, plenty of companies will not bankrupt, but of those that don't, they aren't going to be expanding their payroll anytime soon after the stock market just took an absolute pummeling and removed years of economic gain in days. The market is currently being propped up by the federal reserve providing unlimited quantitative easing at the cost of inflation, not a long term solution. Even if we gave everyone a cure and vaccine tomorrow, we are on shaky ground because of what the fed has been doing, for better or worse, and will be in a recession for years.