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U.S. jobless numbers surge as worsening Covid-19 pandemic hurts businesses

63 points by heyheyheysome 6y ago

anewaccount2021 6y ago
For many, their former workplaces are gone. So beating covid won't put them back to work immediately, and many will become the permanently (and eventually uncounted) unemployed.
scohesc 6y ago
Man, it's so frustrating seeing all these businesses shutting down (smaller ones are closing for good), meanwhile I'm sure Bezos and the Silicon crew are reporting record profits this year through food deliveries and amazon purchases. I sometimes find it very _very_ hard to not see this all a transfer of wealth from the middle/lower classes to the upper classes - either calculated beforehand or just being taken advantage of now I don't think it matters. We're jumping right into another Great Depression, although as a millennial, I would argue we should call it something more fitting and modern - maybe... "The Big Sad"?
- tw04 6y ago
  What else could you call it? You can't drop taxes on the wealthiest Americans who are seeing the lions share of wealth transferred to them and then have the government spend like a drunken sailor to try to keep the economy from tanking. SOMEONE has to pay for those stimulus checks and it appears right now it's turning into a loan that our great grandchildren will bear the responsibility of so that Bezos and Co can see an extra 0 at the end of their net worth.
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    The government can just keep borrowing until the currency collapses, there is no need to actually pay the debt down.
    - zaroth 6y ago
      The word “need” presupposes a particular outcome. You don’t “need” to breathe, unless you want to live. The universe doesn’t “need” to keep existing. So in language, when we say we need something, it’s a need for a particular and often presumptive / implied outcome. In this case the purpose of the government is to provide for the general welfare of its citizens. The value of the US dollar depends on the “full faith and credit” of the United States actually meaning something. Therefore the government does need to show a willingness and ability to pay its debts. The perceived future rate of inflation is a major variable in determining the interest rate that the US has to pay on its debt. Also, the US government needs to control the level of inflation in order to have a functioning economy. Given the widely accepted theory that printing arbitrarily large sums of money over time drives inflation, there are competing forces that act in the short and long term that would dictate the right amount of money to print now, or into the future. Since the ultimate goal is to stabilize and grow the economy, the government does in fact need to not borrow until the currency collapses, and needs to be able to keep its debt to some reasonable multiple of GDP.
      - maxerickson 6y ago
        You need more money sloshing around as the economy grows or you get deflation. Really, I'm gonna post 'borrowing is fine' in reply to lots of messages that act like the US government is running a household budget.
        harambae 6y ago
        Can the current rate of spending continue indefinitely with normal necessities remaining affordable for the majority of individuals? If not, when will it end?
  - GordonS 6y ago
    I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I recently read that Trump's tax cuts for the rich cost more than the stimulus checks.
  - throwaway5752 6y ago
    Bezos literally got his phone hacked by foreign intelligence services for being supportive of the party that wants to fix this situation. He's benefiting because Amazon is well run and well positioned for this. He couldn't control how the response was managed and he doesn't control tax policy. Do a better job of blaming the people who are actually at fault, or you are abetting them.
    - tw04 6y ago
      Amazon has been using tax havens for years and years. Amazon has been actively preventing unionization of employees. Jeff Bezos has personally donated to both political parties. Don't confuse his personal dislike of Trump with some sort of undying support of the Democratic party or their tax policies.
      - throwaway5752 6y ago
        Of course he donates to both political parties, he's not a moron. Of course he uses the most advantageous legal tax strategy available. Almost every US company prevents union organization (nothing they've done comes close to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Walmart#Labor_union_opposition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Walmart#Labor_uni..., and I wouldn't be surprised if companies astroturfed union initiatives in competitors) He is a private citizen and just because he's wealthy it's not his job to fix the US financial system. I don't have time or inclination to rehash it all so https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hack_of_Jeff_Bezos%27s_phone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hack_of_Jeff_Bezos%27s_phone, but he owns WaPo and the hacking was probably retribution re Khashoggi. There was nothing done about it because "somebody" didn't like the WaPo editorial stance.
        tw04 6y ago
        >Of course he uses the most advantageous legal tax strategy available. Almost every US company prevents union organization >just because he's wealthy it's not his job to fix the US financial system. In other words, he should be lumped in with all the other billionaires that avoid taxes and aren't doing anything to uphold the social contract.
- prox 6y ago
  The network effect is strong. If I post a comment to stop using Chrome (since there are better alternatives and Chrome is a near monopoly) we already see how resistant to change we are. If you order something, people don’t search for alternatives. If your tied into an eco system, you don’t move away from it. Personally I actively try to support local businesses, use only non-monopolies out of principle.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    People do tend to use alternatives that they experience as better (which may not be the same as being better). You have to have a better experience and you have to get people to be aware, consider, and try the alternative experience. A lot of us switched to Chrome because it was a better experience at the time. A lot bought from Amazon for the same reason. I’ll happily buy from a non-Amazon who gives me an experience better than Amazon, consider a browser that’s better than Chrome, or a search engine which gives better results than Google. Those three still get the majority of my in-category traffic though, because the experience is generally very good, quite consistent, and often best-in-class. I think the hurdle to building a competitor to Facebook or Twitter is higher than the hurdle of selling me an electronic device instead of Amazon selling it to me. (BestBuy, NewEgg, MicroCenter [semi-local], and randos on EBay do it regularly. No one is casually going to beat Twitter and FB for social.)
    - prox 6y ago
      The thing is, even when the experience gets worse, you might still be resistant to change. You already have your account setup, that feature X you liked they took isn’t that bad, the extra advertising doesn’t bother you too much, etc. Maybe feature X in Firefox is actually better than Chrome (just an imaginary example) but because it doesn’t exactly work like you are used too, it doesn’t appeal. Or your peers are all in the same in-group and Software X is what a Real Programmer should be using. That all together could mean an experience gets progressively worse yet you don’t switch.
- grecy 6y ago
  In my small town all the locally-owned and operated coffee shops were forced to close due to government mandates, and most are now closed permanently, because they couldn't afford to pay rent without any customers. McDonald's and Starbucks? Still churning out coffee to people standing in long lines. It's infuriating, but what can you do?
  - medium_burrito 6y ago
    We've normalized political violence on the left and right this year. One side trashes a bunch of cities, the other the capitol. That genie won't go back in the bottle for sure. Eventually the poors will get angry and united. So far our industry is helping keep them divided, but I'm not sure how long that will last.
    - perrygeo 6y ago
      > One side trashes a bunch of cities, the other the capitol First, both sides are mostly made up of non-violent people dedicated to their cause. Both sides can rightfully claim that a minority of "bad eggs" amongst them caused the violence. But that's where the equivalency ends. We have to look at the cause itself. It's quite a stretch to say that a group protesting police brutality (in the face of actual police brutality) is at all equivalent to a group seeking to overthrow a legitimate government (with zero evidence to back their claims). It's not the same ballpark. It ain't even the same fucking sport.
      - shadowprofile77 6y ago
        Bullshit. A great number of those protesting on the left/progressive side during the fairly recent BLM marches were peaceful people legitimately angry about police violence, but more than enough others used the same starting point as a launch pad for mass riots, burnings, lootings and the promotion of extremist (but leftist extremist) political postures that were little different in their love of overthrowing legitimate institutions from anything recently done by the idiots at the Capitol. In terms of sheer scale and distribution, the former protests had much more violence to them than more recent right-oriented protests. Emotional attachment to a certain ideology is no excuse for claiming two obviously related things "ain't even the same fucking sport". They very much are, but from different teams.
- centimeter 6y ago
  This entire pandemic response is 100% the modern equivalent of the liquidation of the Kulaks. There's no way around it. If you thought wealth inequality was bad before...
- wcoenen 6y ago
  > I sometimes find it very _very_ hard to not see this all a transfer of wealth from the middle/lower classes to the upper classes - either calculated beforehand or just being taken advantage of now I don't think it matters. Wait, what? You casually suggest that the pandemic was planned as a conspiracy against the middle class, but you don't think it matters whether it was a conspiracy or not? Please clarify if I misunderstood.
  - grawprog 6y ago
    Not the parent, but I read that as, whether or not it was a conspiracy, the effect seems to be the same and the damage is done, so whether it is or not doesn't really matter. As in, focusing on the cause of the problem and whether it was intentional or not isn't going to solve the problem.
  - zamfi 6y ago
    Also not the parent, but I assume "calculated beforehand" does not refer to the pandemic per se, but rather either preparedness for when the economy goes south or exploitation of that reality after the fact.
  - RickS 6y ago
    I suspect they meant the economic/financial response to the pandemic, and the larger mom/pop => gig monolith and physical retail => ecommerce trends, rather than the pandemic itself.
  - ahoy 6y ago
    They're talking about the upward wealth siphon, not the pandemic.
  - scohesc 6y ago
    Sorry if it wasn't clear. I was trying to say that it doesn't matter what you believe is causing all this chaos, it's independent from what's actually going on in the world right this second. Whether it's the conspiracy theorists who believe it was pre-planned by the CCP to accelerate them to be the next global super power fueled by vaccines with 5G death-rays and microchips, or if it's these behemoth companies putting in contingency plans and/or having the massive amounts of reserve capital (rivalling even medium-sized governments) to quickly cater to the new economic landscape brought on by lax regulations and tax havens - it doesn't matter, people are suffering in numbers that haven't been seen probably for a hundred years. It's one of those times I (very begrudgingly) think that China has done well in terms of recovery. They have the hard, enforceable power to lock people in their homes for extended periods of time under who knows what penalty - or they're lying about their recovery to the world... Who knows?
- throwaway5752 6y ago
  This pandemic was avoidable. I say that because when you work with international colleagues you see it firsthand. Other countries aren't suffering like the US is. The US mismanagement of the pandemic just on it's really diminishes it's global standing. It's not Bezos or Instacart or whomever, it's the basic lack of top down coordination in a response to the virus and dissemination of the vaccine. These small business would probably not be closed if we had a competent national response. The probably would be closed but not bankrupt if we didn't have an inept fiscal response, also.
- cft 6y ago
  We are jumping into fascism 2.0: - Suppression of ability to speak freely - One party system - The executive organizations of the party agenda are the largest monopolies (instead of Krupp and Messerschmitt we have Google and Amazon for now). I know I will get a lot of downvotes, but i hope it helps at least a couple of people here to know they aren't alone in thinking this now.
  - mikestew 6y ago
    One party system You're going to have to explain that one. Right now I just have to assume you mean "one party controls all three branches of government", in which case, it's not the fault of Democrats that the GOP turned into assclowns and got voted out.
    - scohesc 6y ago
      I took it to mean that it doesn't matter if it's left or right, "Democrat" or "Republican". The transfer of wealth has (in my personal theory) lead to the lobbying of everybody, no matter which political affiliation - to the point where both "sides" are agreeing on policies that are harming people and favoring corporations.
      - mikestew 6y ago
        Ah, the ol' "two rails going down the same track", got it; thanks for a different perspective.
  - lenkite 6y ago
    The wealth transfer to Bezos and Zuckerberg in 2020 has been terrifying. Bezos has crossed 200 billion! https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2020/08/26/worlds-richest-billionaire-jeff-bezos-first-200-billion/?sh=2a95d51f4db7 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2020/08/26/wor... In general, US billionaires have gained over 1 trillion while small-businesses have perished https://www.statista.com/chart/22068/change-in-wealth-of-billionaires-during-pandemic/ https://www.statista.com/chart/22068/change-in-wealth-of-bil... You can put considerable blame on those democratic governors and mayors who give shutdown orders to small businesses but allow major retailers to remain open https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/tale-two-pandemics-big-box-stores-rake-record-profits-while-n1237464 https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/tale-two-pandemics... https://azbigmedia.com/business/covid-small-business-impact-left-with-just-walmart-and-mcdonalds/ https://azbigmedia.com/business/covid-small-business-impact-...
- fakedang 6y ago
  Anecdotal, but I laughed when I saw that SL Green, one of the biggest commercial landlords in New York City, and one of the competitors of my former PE firm, was seeking federal relief funds for the pandemic as a small business.
  - scohesc 6y ago
    Not looking to give them an "out" - but I wonder if it's because these companies take on so much debt by buying properties and making the bet that people will always be living and working in them, paying rent. Now that people are leaving NYC in droves for other, cheaper locations - the NY real estate market is absolutely tanking because nobody is paying rent. These property management companies made their bed, imo.
    - fakedang 6y ago
      That's kind of their business model, yep. My old firm sort of moved away from the LBO model, but it's still going strong.
- maxfurman 6y ago
  This absolutely is a transfer of wealth up to the billionaire class. Money that would have been put into the hands of waiters, dishwashers, barbers, and bartenders is now being spent on Grubhub and Amazon. The remedy for this is a transfer in the opposite direction - direct stimulus payments. There's a reason McConnell fought so hard against those.
- AuryGlenz 6y ago
  I have a photography studio in a small (population 1,000 or so) town in Minnesota that has surprisingly become a bit of a shopping destination. Or had, anyways. Half of the shops on Main Street are now closed. Some were, I think, destined to fail. A candy shop is a pretty ridiculous prospect nowadays. Others have been staples to the town for years and helped make it worth it for other businesses to move in. I’m really not sure if it’ll ever bounce back. There are still a couple of clothing shops, a restaurant, a brewery, and a wedding dress shop. If one or two of those go down I might think about pulling the plug myself.
dougmwne 6y ago
As I have watched these headlines, I have constantly been frustrated by the lack of analysis of what's really going on beyond the data point. Which industries lost jobs? Are the losses temporary due to lockdowns or a sign of an accelerating recession? Which regions lost the most jobs? Which income levels are most affected? What percent of jobless people are being covered by unemployment? And so on. A single data point is useless click bait. Who is building the Tableau dashboard and having an economist write weekly economic analysis for the general public? Without good information, our democracy is rudderless.
- Clent 6y ago
  Are you expecting that analysis to be in the headline itself? Several of the questions you pose are answered in the article. "The losses last month were concentrated among restaurants, bars, hotels and entertainment venues. Educational services, mostly colleges and universities, also cut workers in December. So did film and music studios." " Economists say it could take several years for the labour market to recover from the pandemic." "contacts in the leisure and hospitality sectors reported renewed employment cuts due to stricter containment measures."
  - dougmwne 6y ago
    Where are the graphs? Where is the data to back up those claims? Does "concentrated" mean 20% or 90%? Which economists said that and why did they say it? How many job cuts did the leasure and hospitality sector see? Without any summarized data to back up the claims, they amount to little more than unsourced opinions. I am asking for the opposite of a headline. I want a well source, data backed economic analysis for people who are interested in the deals but who are not economists, updated weekly or monthly in a consistent format.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  There's not lock downs in the US. There are some rules about how businesses can operate, but people aren't locked down. Here there is no in person dining. I think it would be pretty interesting to compare their revenues from 2019 to the periods during the pandemic where they have been open. My impression is that the 2020 numbers would be pretty weak, but I don't know.
DisjointedHunt 6y ago
This is the picture that played out across Spain and Greece in the early part of this decade ((We're a 1/5th part through "this decade, wow) Sudden, elevated incidents of economic catastrophe leading to a massive decline in economic output and the underlying opportunities available to a few generations of intelligent people. This led to a significant decline in wealth creation relative to the rest of the emerging world in these nations. Unlike the United States, they did not have the massive power of the worlds biggest military underwriting their currency and had to rely on the graces of the EU and IMF, who, frankly, displayed why bureaucratic lethargy is widely despised. Make no mistake, this is going to remake the economy in ways very few of us can even begin to appreciate. How we, as a nation handle this sets the balance of power in the world for the next half of the century.
- clav3 6y ago
  I think you mean "century" (10years) not "decade" (100years)
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
    You've got the meanings backwards. Decade is ten years and century is a hundred years.
  - curryst 6y ago
    You have those backwards. A century is 100 years, a decade is 10 years.
jorblumesea 6y ago
Hardly surprising, the US strategy has been lockdowns (good!) but without consistent aid to people and small businesses (bad!). The stay home and don't spread idea is a good one but needs to be backed up by actual assistance or aid. Pitiful amount of assistance from the federal government. We had one round of adequate funding right as this started and then basically nothing else. Money ran out, Congress was deadlocked and only aid we got was piggybacked onto a normal spending bill.
- slowmovintarget 6y ago
  Right, and banks gave away the money to businesses that were good at paperwork (including some owned by politicians who got preferential treatment). The money, for the most part, didn't go where it was needed. I know it would be next to impossible here in the U.S., but one of the things China did for the lockdown was to declare a rent abatement for anyone not allowed to do business. This wasn't a suspension where you got hammered later. You just did not pay rent while you had no income. End of story. It was a temporary suspension of the economy in order to get back to a more normal level of operation. Australia is another example of this. We got theater, fraud, and politicization instead.
  - imbnwa 6y ago
    Japan also had a similiar response[0]. [0]https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=3848d55f-749c-4fc1-9aa1-8fa6c0d4330c https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=3848d55f-749c...
tejohnso 6y ago
Yet SPX is still hanging out at all time highs. I don't understand how professional short sellers made it through the past few years. Everything from economy, social structure, and climate, all going to hell, but the stock market seems blind to all of it.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
  In my understanding professional short sellers rarely short the whole market. They'll tend to have a particular firm that they think is overvalued and short that.
- CountSessine 6y ago
  The economy as measured by GDP and unemployment was doing really well up until 2020 and Covid. And stock prices represent the present value of future earnings - if you believe that we'll see a reversion to the mean after Covid (and we will), why would you expect SPX to tank?
- p_j_w 6y ago
  At least as of a couple of months ago, the lion's share of growth in the S&P 500 was from a few tech stocks, everyone else seemed mostly stagnant. You might respond that stagnant seems to be an overvalue, and I'd agree except that the fed has been pumping money into the markets in huge amounts.
exabrial 6y ago
> government response to worsening Covid-19 pandemic hurts businesses Fixed the title. Unfortunately we don't have to be where we're at. We knows who's most vulnerable, we know how it spreads (low airflow crowded spaces), we know who's been vaccinated and/or who's had it. The fact that any organized response, even at the city or state level, across both blue and red states, shows the ineptitude of these appointed officials. In many ways the "hey we're at least doing x,y" is worse than doing nothing at all.
- eckmLJE 6y ago
  We can't even rely on citizens to wear masks. What makes you think that if government were competent enough to develop complex rules based on the factors you mention that we would be any better off.
  - exabrial 6y ago
    Exactly, this is a great example of a failed policy. Lets apply the simple rule: the less moving pieces a system has, the less it's likely to fail. So, instead of getting 100 people to wear a mask in one business, get 1 business to increase the airflow in the business by 10x. Much simpler solution and something that can be directly measured. And really, they're non-competing; we can do both. Furthermore it eliminates the perceived need for draconian measure that are fueling other social problems.
    - eckmLJE 6y ago
      I'm sorry, you think that increasing airflow by 10x in businesses in many various buildings and conditions is a simpler matter than people putting a piece of cloth over their face? xD The key government failure in the US, at least since a total failure by the white house to seize the moment early on, is republicans seizing mask-wearing as a wedge issue. Following the most simple measures such as masks would effectively solve the issue enough for vaccines to catch up. Cynical exploitation of ignorance in the people by republicans has been the true societal failure in this pandemic.
exabrial 6y ago
We're a company of about 12 FTEs. Nobody here filed for unemployment, yet we've seen 5 fraudulent unemployment claims (for people that still work here) come across our HR department that creepily accurate information. What gives? And are those claims included in these stats?
- rtkwe 6y ago
  People cashing in on the Equifax hack most likely.
  - fabianhjr 6y ago
    And the whole "lets use this couple digit number that cannot be changed as authorization/authentication/proof of identity". Why can someone use the SSN to supplant identities?
    - rtkwe 6y ago
      It's the one ID everyone had (eventually) and should only have 1 of for their whole life which means it's perfect as a lazy way to keep just one record for every customer that'll never change.
fabianhjr 6y ago
It is grimmer to look at the labour participation rate: https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-labor-force-participation-rate.htm https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-lab... If anything between outsourcing and automation employment isn't coming back. (And the employment that does come back will be at sub-minimum wage 12-hour days precarized "gigs" or 3 "half-time" jobs)
- ravedave5 6y ago
  Really strange they don't have an age upper limit, a bunch of that decline is likely baby boomers leaving the workforce.
  - Armisael16 6y ago
    You’re probably looking for one of the unemployment rates. It’s quite useful to know what fraction of the population is working, even if there are perfectly good reasons for some to not be working. Retirees still eat and someone has to grow the food.
  - fabianhjr 6y ago
    Not quite, employment participation declined since 2008 but working age population kept increasing until it stagnated near ~2017 according to "Working Age Population: 15-64" statisctis ( https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTUSM647S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTUSM647S ) and stable since ~2006 according to "Working Age Population: 25-64" statistics ( https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA25TTUSM647S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA25TTUSM647S )
centimeter 6y ago
I think it's disingenuous how all of these news articles phrase it as if the pandemic itself was responsible for hurting these businesses. In reality, the effect of covid alone on business would be very small for most industries. The thing that's actually destroying these businesses (and the middle-class wealth behind them) is the government reaction to the pandemic, not the pandemic itself.
- triceratops 6y ago
  More accurately the government non-reaction to the pandemic. Patchwork of confusing lockdown rules, poorly observed, and next to no assistance for those truly in need. We got the worst of both worlds: death and economic destruction.
  - centimeter 6y ago
    > More accurately the government non-reaction to the pandemic. This is precisely the opposite of true. Countries with strict and widely observed lockdowns don't seem to be generally better off health-wise than those with no lockdowns whatsoever, but their economies are certainly worse off. > next to no assistance for those truly in need If you think "assistance" such as it could have been rendered would have been good for the economy, your economic model is badly broken. The only viable approach is to not impoverish those people in the first place, which was an option.
    - triceratops 6y ago
      > Countries with strict and widely observed lockdowns don't seem to be generally better off health-wise No? So we're not counting China or Australia? I also didn't say anything about lockdowns specifically. Those are the last resort after travel restrictions, mandatory testing and quarantine for travelers, contact tracing, universal mask-wearing have failed to slow the spread. We didn't even try any of that, did some weakly-observed lockdowns and then said "See? Nothing works! Not our fault!" > good for the economy I said it would have prevented the widespread misery. The economy exists to provide for human wants and needs. It's not an end in itself. If we were going to print money (yes I know that's a simplistic view of what happened) give it to people to buy food and pay rent. > The only viable approach is to not impoverish those people in the first place, which was an option. Definitely. By doing everything I said above - testing, quarantine, contact-tracing, not denying the existence of the disease in February etc. Instead we did none of the preventive measures, then half-heartedly locked down in a haphazard fashion. If we'd done nothing, the virus would have run amok and impoverished those people anyway by destroying their industries and we'd have way more deaths.
beerandt 6y ago
Forced shutdowns without immediate compensation is an illegal government taking under the Constitution. You know it as expropriation. There's got to be more incentive for governments to lift these restrictions, and a real cost of they don't, even if they're playing with someone else's money.
lazyjones 6y ago
Unpopular opinion, but I don't understand why people still tolerate these drastic and destructive measures when we can see all over the world that they have minimal effect on seasonal virus infections. Have we abandoned all common sense in sheer panic? Just an example: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-20..latest&country=DEU~AUT~USA~ROU&region=World&deathsMetric=true&interval=smoothed&hideControls=true&perCapita=true&smoothing=7&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToS... Romania has had much more liberal policies than Austria for months, yet it is doing better (by a small constant factor it seems). The seasonal effect is clearly visible. We will be suffering the consequences of these wrong policies for years as countries, and in particular also Europe as a whole, losing ground internationally.
- lostlogin 6y ago
  Here in New Zealand we have had struck lockdowns and have eradicated covid.
  - lazyjones 6y ago
    You also had strict travel bans I believe.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - lostlogin 6y ago
      For non residents.
ravenstine 6y ago
Every day I read a different article about how many jobs there are, and then I read one about how bad unemployment is, then I read one about how the economy is booming, and then I read one about how the economy is declining. This is clown world, and I don't know how we've sustained it this far. Everything seems to be in conflict. Somehow investors have a seemingly irrational confidence in the market. What is going on? Collective insanity?
- Server6 6y ago
  The US economy appears to have bifurcated, which in my opinion is the root cause of a lot of our social unrest issues. The white collar/upper class is doing just fine, hasn't been laid off, and has been minimally affected by COVID. This group is also responsible for most of our economic output - which is turn driving a disconnected wallstreet. The lower/working class has been completely obliterated. Though these people represent a larger chuck of the population their economic output is less impactful. In other words, Wallstreet is unaffected by bunch of unemployed service people. It's no wonder these people are angry and rallying behind a psudo-fascist like Trump. We need to do something about these inequality issues, otherwise we're on a slippery slope.
  - ravenstine 6y ago
    > It's no wonder these people are angry and rallying behind a psudo-fascist like Trump. Say what you want about Trump, and there's a lot bad to say about him, but at least he pretends to listen to the blue collar class. People need to understand this because most of his voters are not the radical MAGA people. If those voters don't believe they have a voice now, and arguably they don't have that voice, that increases the chances of more fractionation, more violence, and so on. They should be pissed, by the way. They've either lost their jobs or had to continue delivering food or whatever during a pandemic for the white collar workers whose jobs are primarily nonsense. Society rewards people who invent problems, the digital duct tapers who fix those problems, the countless managers and supervisors to wrangle those duct tapers, and governance structures like Human Resources, but pays shit for actual work. Even if you are white collar, depending on what you're doing you may get paid only modestly if you're solving a real problem. Something in us is telling us that we can't allow actual problems to be solved because, if we solved them, we'd all be out of things to do. And that's one problem we don't know how to fix.
Theodores 6y ago
The media will bring inevitable tales of woe. Yet other businesses have been booming. I know there is no furlough in the US but think of those in this pandemic who are healthier, better rested and fitter than they have ever been. Every disaster also comes with opportunity. In e-commerce life is good even if retail is a disaster. Who is hiring and doing well out of this?
Simulacra 6y ago
You can't shut down small businesses but allow major retailers to stay open, and expect things to be ok. Eventually businesses run out of cash, run out of loans, and they go bust leaving employees in the cold. Good thing they have that $600...

63 points by heyheyheysome 6y ago

anewaccount2021 6y ago

For many, their former workplaces are gone. So beating covid won't put them back to work immediately, and many will become the permanently (and eventually uncounted) unemployed.

scohesc 6y ago

Man, it's so frustrating seeing all these businesses shutting down (smaller ones are closing for good), meanwhile I'm sure Bezos and the Silicon crew are reporting record profits this year through food deliveries and amazon purchases. I sometimes find it very _very_ hard to not see this all a transfer of wealth from the middle/lower classes to the upper classes - either calculated beforehand or just being taken advantage of now I don't think it matters. We're jumping right into another Great Depression, although as a millennial, I would argue we should call it something more fitting and modern - maybe... "The Big Sad"?

tw04 6y ago
What else could you call it? You can't drop taxes on the wealthiest Americans who are seeing the lions share of wealth transferred to them and then have the government spend like a drunken sailor to try to keep the economy from tanking. SOMEONE has to pay for those stimulus checks and it appears right now it's turning into a loan that our great grandchildren will bear the responsibility of so that Bezos and Co can see an extra 0 at the end of their net worth.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  The government can just keep borrowing until the currency collapses, there is no need to actually pay the debt down.
  - zaroth 6y ago
    The word “need” presupposes a particular outcome. You don’t “need” to breathe, unless you want to live. The universe doesn’t “need” to keep existing. So in language, when we say we need something, it’s a need for a particular and often presumptive / implied outcome. In this case the purpose of the government is to provide for the general welfare of its citizens. The value of the US dollar depends on the “full faith and credit” of the United States actually meaning something. Therefore the government does need to show a willingness and ability to pay its debts. The perceived future rate of inflation is a major variable in determining the interest rate that the US has to pay on its debt. Also, the US government needs to control the level of inflation in order to have a functioning economy. Given the widely accepted theory that printing arbitrarily large sums of money over time drives inflation, there are competing forces that act in the short and long term that would dictate the right amount of money to print now, or into the future. Since the ultimate goal is to stabilize and grow the economy, the government does in fact need to not borrow until the currency collapses, and needs to be able to keep its debt to some reasonable multiple of GDP.
    - maxerickson 6y ago
      You need more money sloshing around as the economy grows or you get deflation. Really, I'm gonna post 'borrowing is fine' in reply to lots of messages that act like the US government is running a household budget.
      - harambae 6y ago
        Can the current rate of spending continue indefinitely with normal necessities remaining affordable for the majority of individuals? If not, when will it end?
- GordonS 6y ago
  I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I recently read that Trump's tax cuts for the rich cost more than the stimulus checks.
- throwaway5752 6y ago
  Bezos literally got his phone hacked by foreign intelligence services for being supportive of the party that wants to fix this situation. He's benefiting because Amazon is well run and well positioned for this. He couldn't control how the response was managed and he doesn't control tax policy. Do a better job of blaming the people who are actually at fault, or you are abetting them.
  - tw04 6y ago
    Amazon has been using tax havens for years and years. Amazon has been actively preventing unionization of employees. Jeff Bezos has personally donated to both political parties. Don't confuse his personal dislike of Trump with some sort of undying support of the Democratic party or their tax policies.
    - throwaway5752 6y ago
      Of course he donates to both political parties, he's not a moron. Of course he uses the most advantageous legal tax strategy available. Almost every US company prevents union organization (nothing they've done comes close to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Walmart#Labor_union_opposition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Walmart#Labor_uni..., and I wouldn't be surprised if companies astroturfed union initiatives in competitors) He is a private citizen and just because he's wealthy it's not his job to fix the US financial system. I don't have time or inclination to rehash it all so https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hack_of_Jeff_Bezos%27s_phone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hack_of_Jeff_Bezos%27s_phone, but he owns WaPo and the hacking was probably retribution re Khashoggi. There was nothing done about it because "somebody" didn't like the WaPo editorial stance.
      - tw04 6y ago
        >Of course he uses the most advantageous legal tax strategy available. Almost every US company prevents union organization >just because he's wealthy it's not his job to fix the US financial system. In other words, he should be lumped in with all the other billionaires that avoid taxes and aren't doing anything to uphold the social contract.
prox 6y ago
The network effect is strong. If I post a comment to stop using Chrome (since there are better alternatives and Chrome is a near monopoly) we already see how resistant to change we are. If you order something, people don’t search for alternatives. If your tied into an eco system, you don’t move away from it. Personally I actively try to support local businesses, use only non-monopolies out of principle.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  People do tend to use alternatives that they experience as better (which may not be the same as being better). You have to have a better experience and you have to get people to be aware, consider, and try the alternative experience. A lot of us switched to Chrome because it was a better experience at the time. A lot bought from Amazon for the same reason. I’ll happily buy from a non-Amazon who gives me an experience better than Amazon, consider a browser that’s better than Chrome, or a search engine which gives better results than Google. Those three still get the majority of my in-category traffic though, because the experience is generally very good, quite consistent, and often best-in-class. I think the hurdle to building a competitor to Facebook or Twitter is higher than the hurdle of selling me an electronic device instead of Amazon selling it to me. (BestBuy, NewEgg, MicroCenter [semi-local], and randos on EBay do it regularly. No one is casually going to beat Twitter and FB for social.)
  - prox 6y ago
    The thing is, even when the experience gets worse, you might still be resistant to change. You already have your account setup, that feature X you liked they took isn’t that bad, the extra advertising doesn’t bother you too much, etc. Maybe feature X in Firefox is actually better than Chrome (just an imaginary example) but because it doesn’t exactly work like you are used too, it doesn’t appeal. Or your peers are all in the same in-group and Software X is what a Real Programmer should be using. That all together could mean an experience gets progressively worse yet you don’t switch.
grecy 6y ago
In my small town all the locally-owned and operated coffee shops were forced to close due to government mandates, and most are now closed permanently, because they couldn't afford to pay rent without any customers. McDonald's and Starbucks? Still churning out coffee to people standing in long lines. It's infuriating, but what can you do?
- medium_burrito 6y ago
  We've normalized political violence on the left and right this year. One side trashes a bunch of cities, the other the capitol. That genie won't go back in the bottle for sure. Eventually the poors will get angry and united. So far our industry is helping keep them divided, but I'm not sure how long that will last.
  - perrygeo 6y ago
    > One side trashes a bunch of cities, the other the capitol First, both sides are mostly made up of non-violent people dedicated to their cause. Both sides can rightfully claim that a minority of "bad eggs" amongst them caused the violence. But that's where the equivalency ends. We have to look at the cause itself. It's quite a stretch to say that a group protesting police brutality (in the face of actual police brutality) is at all equivalent to a group seeking to overthrow a legitimate government (with zero evidence to back their claims). It's not the same ballpark. It ain't even the same fucking sport.
    - shadowprofile77 6y ago
      Bullshit. A great number of those protesting on the left/progressive side during the fairly recent BLM marches were peaceful people legitimately angry about police violence, but more than enough others used the same starting point as a launch pad for mass riots, burnings, lootings and the promotion of extremist (but leftist extremist) political postures that were little different in their love of overthrowing legitimate institutions from anything recently done by the idiots at the Capitol. In terms of sheer scale and distribution, the former protests had much more violence to them than more recent right-oriented protests. Emotional attachment to a certain ideology is no excuse for claiming two obviously related things "ain't even the same fucking sport". They very much are, but from different teams.
centimeter 6y ago
This entire pandemic response is 100% the modern equivalent of the liquidation of the Kulaks. There's no way around it. If you thought wealth inequality was bad before...
wcoenen 6y ago
> I sometimes find it very _very_ hard to not see this all a transfer of wealth from the middle/lower classes to the upper classes - either calculated beforehand or just being taken advantage of now I don't think it matters. Wait, what? You casually suggest that the pandemic was planned as a conspiracy against the middle class, but you don't think it matters whether it was a conspiracy or not? Please clarify if I misunderstood.
- grawprog 6y ago
  Not the parent, but I read that as, whether or not it was a conspiracy, the effect seems to be the same and the damage is done, so whether it is or not doesn't really matter. As in, focusing on the cause of the problem and whether it was intentional or not isn't going to solve the problem.
- zamfi 6y ago
  Also not the parent, but I assume "calculated beforehand" does not refer to the pandemic per se, but rather either preparedness for when the economy goes south or exploitation of that reality after the fact.
- RickS 6y ago
  I suspect they meant the economic/financial response to the pandemic, and the larger mom/pop => gig monolith and physical retail => ecommerce trends, rather than the pandemic itself.
- ahoy 6y ago
  They're talking about the upward wealth siphon, not the pandemic.
- scohesc 6y ago
  Sorry if it wasn't clear. I was trying to say that it doesn't matter what you believe is causing all this chaos, it's independent from what's actually going on in the world right this second. Whether it's the conspiracy theorists who believe it was pre-planned by the CCP to accelerate them to be the next global super power fueled by vaccines with 5G death-rays and microchips, or if it's these behemoth companies putting in contingency plans and/or having the massive amounts of reserve capital (rivalling even medium-sized governments) to quickly cater to the new economic landscape brought on by lax regulations and tax havens - it doesn't matter, people are suffering in numbers that haven't been seen probably for a hundred years. It's one of those times I (very begrudgingly) think that China has done well in terms of recovery. They have the hard, enforceable power to lock people in their homes for extended periods of time under who knows what penalty - or they're lying about their recovery to the world... Who knows?
throwaway5752 6y ago
This pandemic was avoidable. I say that because when you work with international colleagues you see it firsthand. Other countries aren't suffering like the US is. The US mismanagement of the pandemic just on it's really diminishes it's global standing. It's not Bezos or Instacart or whomever, it's the basic lack of top down coordination in a response to the virus and dissemination of the vaccine. These small business would probably not be closed if we had a competent national response. The probably would be closed but not bankrupt if we didn't have an inept fiscal response, also.
cft 6y ago
We are jumping into fascism 2.0: - Suppression of ability to speak freely - One party system - The executive organizations of the party agenda are the largest monopolies (instead of Krupp and Messerschmitt we have Google and Amazon for now). I know I will get a lot of downvotes, but i hope it helps at least a couple of people here to know they aren't alone in thinking this now.
- mikestew 6y ago
  One party system You're going to have to explain that one. Right now I just have to assume you mean "one party controls all three branches of government", in which case, it's not the fault of Democrats that the GOP turned into assclowns and got voted out.
  - scohesc 6y ago
    I took it to mean that it doesn't matter if it's left or right, "Democrat" or "Republican". The transfer of wealth has (in my personal theory) lead to the lobbying of everybody, no matter which political affiliation - to the point where both "sides" are agreeing on policies that are harming people and favoring corporations.
    - mikestew 6y ago
      Ah, the ol' "two rails going down the same track", got it; thanks for a different perspective.
- lenkite 6y ago
  The wealth transfer to Bezos and Zuckerberg in 2020 has been terrifying. Bezos has crossed 200 billion! https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2020/08/26/worlds-richest-billionaire-jeff-bezos-first-200-billion/?sh=2a95d51f4db7 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2020/08/26/wor... In general, US billionaires have gained over 1 trillion while small-businesses have perished https://www.statista.com/chart/22068/change-in-wealth-of-billionaires-during-pandemic/ https://www.statista.com/chart/22068/change-in-wealth-of-bil... You can put considerable blame on those democratic governors and mayors who give shutdown orders to small businesses but allow major retailers to remain open https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/tale-two-pandemics-big-box-stores-rake-record-profits-while-n1237464 https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/tale-two-pandemics... https://azbigmedia.com/business/covid-small-business-impact-left-with-just-walmart-and-mcdonalds/ https://azbigmedia.com/business/covid-small-business-impact-...
fakedang 6y ago
Anecdotal, but I laughed when I saw that SL Green, one of the biggest commercial landlords in New York City, and one of the competitors of my former PE firm, was seeking federal relief funds for the pandemic as a small business.
- scohesc 6y ago
  Not looking to give them an "out" - but I wonder if it's because these companies take on so much debt by buying properties and making the bet that people will always be living and working in them, paying rent. Now that people are leaving NYC in droves for other, cheaper locations - the NY real estate market is absolutely tanking because nobody is paying rent. These property management companies made their bed, imo.
  - fakedang 6y ago
    That's kind of their business model, yep. My old firm sort of moved away from the LBO model, but it's still going strong.
maxfurman 6y ago
This absolutely is a transfer of wealth up to the billionaire class. Money that would have been put into the hands of waiters, dishwashers, barbers, and bartenders is now being spent on Grubhub and Amazon. The remedy for this is a transfer in the opposite direction - direct stimulus payments. There's a reason McConnell fought so hard against those.
AuryGlenz 6y ago
I have a photography studio in a small (population 1,000 or so) town in Minnesota that has surprisingly become a bit of a shopping destination. Or had, anyways. Half of the shops on Main Street are now closed. Some were, I think, destined to fail. A candy shop is a pretty ridiculous prospect nowadays. Others have been staples to the town for years and helped make it worth it for other businesses to move in. I’m really not sure if it’ll ever bounce back. There are still a couple of clothing shops, a restaurant, a brewery, and a wedding dress shop. If one or two of those go down I might think about pulling the plug myself.

dougmwne 6y ago

As I have watched these headlines, I have constantly been frustrated by the lack of analysis of what's really going on beyond the data point. Which industries lost jobs? Are the losses temporary due to lockdowns or a sign of an accelerating recession? Which regions lost the most jobs? Which income levels are most affected? What percent of jobless people are being covered by unemployment? And so on. A single data point is useless click bait. Who is building the Tableau dashboard and having an economist write weekly economic analysis for the general public? Without good information, our democracy is rudderless.

Clent 6y ago
Are you expecting that analysis to be in the headline itself? Several of the questions you pose are answered in the article. "The losses last month were concentrated among restaurants, bars, hotels and entertainment venues. Educational services, mostly colleges and universities, also cut workers in December. So did film and music studios." " Economists say it could take several years for the labour market to recover from the pandemic." "contacts in the leisure and hospitality sectors reported renewed employment cuts due to stricter containment measures."
- dougmwne 6y ago
  Where are the graphs? Where is the data to back up those claims? Does "concentrated" mean 20% or 90%? Which economists said that and why did they say it? How many job cuts did the leasure and hospitality sector see? Without any summarized data to back up the claims, they amount to little more than unsourced opinions. I am asking for the opposite of a headline. I want a well source, data backed economic analysis for people who are interested in the deals but who are not economists, updated weekly or monthly in a consistent format.
maxerickson 6y ago
There's not lock downs in the US. There are some rules about how businesses can operate, but people aren't locked down. Here there is no in person dining. I think it would be pretty interesting to compare their revenues from 2019 to the periods during the pandemic where they have been open. My impression is that the 2020 numbers would be pretty weak, but I don't know.

DisjointedHunt 6y ago

This is the picture that played out across Spain and Greece in the early part of this decade ((We're a 1/5th part through "this decade, wow) Sudden, elevated incidents of economic catastrophe leading to a massive decline in economic output and the underlying opportunities available to a few generations of intelligent people. This led to a significant decline in wealth creation relative to the rest of the emerging world in these nations. Unlike the United States, they did not have the massive power of the worlds biggest military underwriting their currency and had to rely on the graces of the EU and IMF, who, frankly, displayed why bureaucratic lethargy is widely despised. Make no mistake, this is going to remake the economy in ways very few of us can even begin to appreciate. How we, as a nation handle this sets the balance of power in the world for the next half of the century.

clav3 6y ago
I think you mean "century" (10years) not "decade" (100years)
- asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
  You've got the meanings backwards. Decade is ten years and century is a hundred years.
- curryst 6y ago
  You have those backwards. A century is 100 years, a decade is 10 years.

jorblumesea 6y ago

Hardly surprising, the US strategy has been lockdowns (good!) but without consistent aid to people and small businesses (bad!). The stay home and don't spread idea is a good one but needs to be backed up by actual assistance or aid. Pitiful amount of assistance from the federal government. We had one round of adequate funding right as this started and then basically nothing else. Money ran out, Congress was deadlocked and only aid we got was piggybacked onto a normal spending bill.

slowmovintarget 6y ago
Right, and banks gave away the money to businesses that were good at paperwork (including some owned by politicians who got preferential treatment). The money, for the most part, didn't go where it was needed. I know it would be next to impossible here in the U.S., but one of the things China did for the lockdown was to declare a rent abatement for anyone not allowed to do business. This wasn't a suspension where you got hammered later. You just did not pay rent while you had no income. End of story. It was a temporary suspension of the economy in order to get back to a more normal level of operation. Australia is another example of this. We got theater, fraud, and politicization instead.
- imbnwa 6y ago
  Japan also had a similiar response[0]. [0]https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=3848d55f-749c-4fc1-9aa1-8fa6c0d4330c https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=3848d55f-749c...

tejohnso 6y ago

Yet SPX is still hanging out at all time highs. I don't understand how professional short sellers made it through the past few years. Everything from economy, social structure, and climate, all going to hell, but the stock market seems blind to all of it.

asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
In my understanding professional short sellers rarely short the whole market. They'll tend to have a particular firm that they think is overvalued and short that.
CountSessine 6y ago
The economy as measured by GDP and unemployment was doing really well up until 2020 and Covid. And stock prices represent the present value of future earnings - if you believe that we'll see a reversion to the mean after Covid (and we will), why would you expect SPX to tank?
p_j_w 6y ago
At least as of a couple of months ago, the lion's share of growth in the S&P 500 was from a few tech stocks, everyone else seemed mostly stagnant. You might respond that stagnant seems to be an overvalue, and I'd agree except that the fed has been pumping money into the markets in huge amounts.

exabrial 6y ago

> government response to worsening Covid-19 pandemic hurts businesses Fixed the title. Unfortunately we don't have to be where we're at. We knows who's most vulnerable, we know how it spreads (low airflow crowded spaces), we know who's been vaccinated and/or who's had it. The fact that any organized response, even at the city or state level, across both blue and red states, shows the ineptitude of these appointed officials. In many ways the "hey we're at least doing x,y" is worse than doing nothing at all.

eckmLJE 6y ago
We can't even rely on citizens to wear masks. What makes you think that if government were competent enough to develop complex rules based on the factors you mention that we would be any better off.
- exabrial 6y ago
  Exactly, this is a great example of a failed policy. Lets apply the simple rule: the less moving pieces a system has, the less it's likely to fail. So, instead of getting 100 people to wear a mask in one business, get 1 business to increase the airflow in the business by 10x. Much simpler solution and something that can be directly measured. And really, they're non-competing; we can do both. Furthermore it eliminates the perceived need for draconian measure that are fueling other social problems.
  - eckmLJE 6y ago
    I'm sorry, you think that increasing airflow by 10x in businesses in many various buildings and conditions is a simpler matter than people putting a piece of cloth over their face? xD The key government failure in the US, at least since a total failure by the white house to seize the moment early on, is republicans seizing mask-wearing as a wedge issue. Following the most simple measures such as masks would effectively solve the issue enough for vaccines to catch up. Cynical exploitation of ignorance in the people by republicans has been the true societal failure in this pandemic.

exabrial 6y ago

We're a company of about 12 FTEs. Nobody here filed for unemployment, yet we've seen 5 fraudulent unemployment claims (for people that still work here) come across our HR department that creepily accurate information. What gives? And are those claims included in these stats?

rtkwe 6y ago
People cashing in on the Equifax hack most likely.
- fabianhjr 6y ago
  And the whole "lets use this couple digit number that cannot be changed as authorization/authentication/proof of identity". Why can someone use the SSN to supplant identities?
  - rtkwe 6y ago
    It's the one ID everyone had (eventually) and should only have 1 of for their whole life which means it's perfect as a lazy way to keep just one record for every customer that'll never change.

fabianhjr 6y ago

It is grimmer to look at the labour participation rate: https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-labor-force-participation-rate.htm https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-lab... If anything between outsourcing and automation employment isn't coming back. (And the employment that does come back will be at sub-minimum wage 12-hour days precarized "gigs" or 3 "half-time" jobs)

ravedave5 6y ago
Really strange they don't have an age upper limit, a bunch of that decline is likely baby boomers leaving the workforce.
- Armisael16 6y ago
  You’re probably looking for one of the unemployment rates. It’s quite useful to know what fraction of the population is working, even if there are perfectly good reasons for some to not be working. Retirees still eat and someone has to grow the food.
- fabianhjr 6y ago
  Not quite, employment participation declined since 2008 but working age population kept increasing until it stagnated near ~2017 according to "Working Age Population: 15-64" statisctis ( https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTUSM647S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTUSM647S ) and stable since ~2006 according to "Working Age Population: 25-64" statistics ( https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA25TTUSM647S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA25TTUSM647S )

centimeter 6y ago

I think it's disingenuous how all of these news articles phrase it as if the pandemic itself was responsible for hurting these businesses. In reality, the effect of covid alone on business would be very small for most industries. The thing that's actually destroying these businesses (and the middle-class wealth behind them) is the government reaction to the pandemic, not the pandemic itself.

triceratops 6y ago
More accurately the government non-reaction to the pandemic. Patchwork of confusing lockdown rules, poorly observed, and next to no assistance for those truly in need. We got the worst of both worlds: death and economic destruction.
- centimeter 6y ago
  > More accurately the government non-reaction to the pandemic. This is precisely the opposite of true. Countries with strict and widely observed lockdowns don't seem to be generally better off health-wise than those with no lockdowns whatsoever, but their economies are certainly worse off. > next to no assistance for those truly in need If you think "assistance" such as it could have been rendered would have been good for the economy, your economic model is badly broken. The only viable approach is to not impoverish those people in the first place, which was an option.
  - triceratops 6y ago
    > Countries with strict and widely observed lockdowns don't seem to be generally better off health-wise No? So we're not counting China or Australia? I also didn't say anything about lockdowns specifically. Those are the last resort after travel restrictions, mandatory testing and quarantine for travelers, contact tracing, universal mask-wearing have failed to slow the spread. We didn't even try any of that, did some weakly-observed lockdowns and then said "See? Nothing works! Not our fault!" > good for the economy I said it would have prevented the widespread misery. The economy exists to provide for human wants and needs. It's not an end in itself. If we were going to print money (yes I know that's a simplistic view of what happened) give it to people to buy food and pay rent. > The only viable approach is to not impoverish those people in the first place, which was an option. Definitely. By doing everything I said above - testing, quarantine, contact-tracing, not denying the existence of the disease in February etc. Instead we did none of the preventive measures, then half-heartedly locked down in a haphazard fashion. If we'd done nothing, the virus would have run amok and impoverished those people anyway by destroying their industries and we'd have way more deaths.

beerandt 6y ago

Forced shutdowns without immediate compensation is an illegal government taking under the Constitution. You know it as expropriation. There's got to be more incentive for governments to lift these restrictions, and a real cost of they don't, even if they're playing with someone else's money.

lazyjones 6y ago

Unpopular opinion, but I don't understand why people still tolerate these drastic and destructive measures when we can see all over the world that they have minimal effect on seasonal virus infections. Have we abandoned all common sense in sheer panic? Just an example: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-20..latest&country=DEU~AUT~USA~ROU&region=World&deathsMetric=true&interval=smoothed&hideControls=true&perCapita=true&smoothing=7&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToS... Romania has had much more liberal policies than Austria for months, yet it is doing better (by a small constant factor it seems). The seasonal effect is clearly visible. We will be suffering the consequences of these wrong policies for years as countries, and in particular also Europe as a whole, losing ground internationally.

lostlogin 6y ago
Here in New Zealand we have had struck lockdowns and have eradicated covid.
- lazyjones 6y ago
  You also had strict travel bans I believe.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - lostlogin 6y ago
    For non residents.

ravenstine 6y ago

Every day I read a different article about how many jobs there are, and then I read one about how bad unemployment is, then I read one about how the economy is booming, and then I read one about how the economy is declining. This is clown world, and I don't know how we've sustained it this far. Everything seems to be in conflict. Somehow investors have a seemingly irrational confidence in the market. What is going on? Collective insanity?

Server6 6y ago
The US economy appears to have bifurcated, which in my opinion is the root cause of a lot of our social unrest issues. The white collar/upper class is doing just fine, hasn't been laid off, and has been minimally affected by COVID. This group is also responsible for most of our economic output - which is turn driving a disconnected wallstreet. The lower/working class has been completely obliterated. Though these people represent a larger chuck of the population their economic output is less impactful. In other words, Wallstreet is unaffected by bunch of unemployed service people. It's no wonder these people are angry and rallying behind a psudo-fascist like Trump. We need to do something about these inequality issues, otherwise we're on a slippery slope.
- ravenstine 6y ago
  > It's no wonder these people are angry and rallying behind a psudo-fascist like Trump. Say what you want about Trump, and there's a lot bad to say about him, but at least he pretends to listen to the blue collar class. People need to understand this because most of his voters are not the radical MAGA people. If those voters don't believe they have a voice now, and arguably they don't have that voice, that increases the chances of more fractionation, more violence, and so on. They should be pissed, by the way. They've either lost their jobs or had to continue delivering food or whatever during a pandemic for the white collar workers whose jobs are primarily nonsense. Society rewards people who invent problems, the digital duct tapers who fix those problems, the countless managers and supervisors to wrangle those duct tapers, and governance structures like Human Resources, but pays shit for actual work. Even if you are white collar, depending on what you're doing you may get paid only modestly if you're solving a real problem. Something in us is telling us that we can't allow actual problems to be solved because, if we solved them, we'd all be out of things to do. And that's one problem we don't know how to fix.

Theodores 6y ago

The media will bring inevitable tales of woe. Yet other businesses have been booming. I know there is no furlough in the US but think of those in this pandemic who are healthier, better rested and fitter than they have ever been. Every disaster also comes with opportunity. In e-commerce life is good even if retail is a disaster. Who is hiring and doing well out of this?

Simulacra 6y ago

You can't shut down small businesses but allow major retailers to stay open, and expect things to be ok. Eventually businesses run out of cash, run out of loans, and they go bust leaving employees in the cold. Good thing they have that $600...