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U.S. Labor Department allows unemployment benefits for coronavirus

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. Labor Department allows unemployment benefits for coronavirus

#81

Post by AnthonyMouse »

djsumdog wrote: post #77
black_puppydog wrote: post #39

One of my podcasts recently said something that I found very fitting: Americans really love themselves some socialism when they get it.

Most people don't even remotely understand what socialism is. Every public road, every interstate, every subsidized city train/bus system, every public park, every police department, every fire department, the CDC, the FDA, the EPA .. they are ALL examples of socialism. You cannot have a high income country without a high level of socialism. Socialism is simply the State providing services for its people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism :

> Socialism is a political, social and economic philosophy encompassing a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production and workers' self-management of enterprises.

The likes of police and fire departments in the US are an example of not socialism. Most of what they need for their operations (cars, radios, buildings, etc.) are produced by private industry. The workers at the CDC and the FDA don't own it, its management and policies are chosen by politicians and voters (and lobbyists) rather than the workers.

Actual socialism doesn't even require government involvement. A worker-owned collective is a socialist enterprise. But the MTA and the US Department of Transportation are not examples of that.

Re: U.S. Labor Department allows unemployment benefits for coronavirus

#82

Post by PeterStuer »

thrill wrote: post #4
zymhan wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would both put a massive strain on the Social Security trust and not pressure employers at all, since they'd likely be happy to have the most expensive employees retire early.

If we can afford a $1.5 trillion injection into the markets, then we can afford moving the SS retirement age to 60 where the most vulnerable exist.

You will gt downvoted like there is no tomorrow here, but you are factually correct. Sadly people do not grasp our fiduciary currency based financial system.

We create money all in extreme amounts all the time. Money is not some sort of 'ore' which we have to mine out of the planet through hard labor. It's a resource we create at will by simple agreement and at the push of a button in unlimited quantities. The 'downside' is that 'new' money potentially can devalue existing money, as there is just more to go around.

Giving the massive amounts of money we create daily to those that need it, for instance to retire after a reasonable lifetime of work, in some twisted logic feels 'bad', where lavishing it on those that do not need it, so they can use it just to hoard, speculate, or buy back their own stock, seems to be accepted as 'fine'.

Re: U.S. Labor Department allows unemployment benefits for coronavirus

#83

Post by onetimemanytime »

thrill wrote: post #2

You know what else would help? Since the risk curve bends sharply upward at age 60, immediately allow anyone to start drawing full social security payments at age 60, without any sort of penalty. Those companies that value their older workers would now be in the position of making work-from-home a full-fledged option, because the bargaining power would shift to where it belongs - the worker.

Maybe a one time payment from the Government, say $3K for 2 months, without changing anything.

Re: U.S. Labor Department allows unemployment benefits for coronavirus

#84

Post by ivalm »

SilasX wrote: post #70
ivalm wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Payday loans are generally not overnight and are typically not collateralized; they are in fact very risky. Repo's are overnight borrowing collateralized by the US Treasuries. Basically it is borrowing to maintain capitalization requirements in these high volatility times. From the perspective of the US government they have literally 0 risk (you are guaranteed to get back either USD denominated money or US treasury).

If you want to use that analogy ... You should compare it to a payday loan that is collateralized [1]. And then where the collateral happens to be insufficient because a glut of that item just came on the market (analogous to the sudden rush of banks needing to convert their Treasurys to cash). For the ordinary person, "Sorry, can't help you, you just have to deal with the fact that everyone else is selling that prod…

Except for they are not using random bonds, they are using Treasuries. This isn't random toxic debt, it's the debt of the US government to itself. More akin to "if banks are insolvent this ensures a certain degree of quantitative easing", which is a good thing since we are undershooting our inflation targets as is.

Re: U.S. Labor Department allows unemployment benefits for coronavirus

#85

Post by zaroth »

majos wrote: post #78
zaroth wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand everything that you wrote is just speculation starting from the conditional, “If COVID-19 digs in deep in the US then...” but I just don’t follow the logic. It’s not our first pandemic. It won’t be the last. And I don’t see any reason at all to think why people won’t go back to living their lives at the first possible opportunity. But what does “dig in deep” even mean? In the vast majority of cases it’s…

> It’s not our first pandemic. It won’t be the last. As far as I can tell, for almost all Americans, this is our first pandemic. The closest analogue might be polio in the 1950s, but maybe 10% of the population remembers that. Going down the list, none of the remaining pandemics within living memory seem to have made a large impact on life in the US [1]. It’s not crazy to imagine changes from this event. There doesn’…

In 2009 we had swine flu, H1N1 which was declared a pandemic by the WHO.

> These final estimates were that from April 12, 2009 to April 10, 2010 approximately 60.8 million cases (range: 43.3-89.3 million), 274,304 hospitalizations (195,086-402,719), and 12,469 deaths (8868-18,306) occurred in the United States due to pH1N1.

It remains to be seen if the hospitalizations or deaths due to COVID approach or exceed the levels of H1N1, which itself was less fatal than a typical flu.

Certainly the response to COVID is markedly different. But I think in the end what will matter is the actual numbers impacted. If the virus turns out to be not as deadly as H1N1 I think people will seriously question the role of the media in building up hysteria around this coronavirus.

https://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/estimates_2009_h1n1.htm

Re: U.S. Labor Department allows unemployment benefits for coronavirus

#86

Post by larrywright »

dsr_ wrote: post #8
larrywright wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social security is based on what you paid in, so the earlier you start withdrawing the lower your monthly check is. You couldn’t allow people to receive the full amount starting at 60 without bankrupting the program.

Ahem. Social security is not self-funded, it's funded by current payroll tax receipts, plus a 2.6 trillion trust fund, plus about 5 trillion in debt owed to it by the rest of the government.

I never said it was self-funded, just that what you take out is a function of how much you pay in + when you begin withdrawing. The proposal here is a major shift in how it works.

Re: U.S. Labor Department allows unemployment benefits for coronavirus

#87

Post by cameldrv »

thrill wrote: post #2

You know what else would help? Since the risk curve bends sharply upward at age 60, immediately allow anyone to start drawing full social security payments at age 60, without any sort of penalty. Those companies that value their older workers would now be in the position of making work-from-home a full-fledged option, because the bargaining power would shift to where it belongs - the worker.

On the other hand, the whole Coronavirus response is largely the young sacrificing for the old. That's a sacrifice I'm willing to make, but older people should not get special financial consideration.

Re: U.S. Labor Department allows unemployment benefits for coronavirus

#88

Post by SilasX »

ivalm wrote: post #84
SilasX wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to use that analogy ... You should compare it to a payday loan that is collateralized [1]. And then where the collateral happens to be insufficient because a glut of that item just came on the market (analogous to the sudden rush of banks needing to convert their Treasurys to cash). For the ordinary person, "Sorry, can't help you, you just have to deal with the fact that everyone else is selling that prod…

Except for they are not using random bonds, they are using Treasuries. This isn't random toxic debt, it's the debt of the US government to itself. More akin to "if banks are insolvent this ensures a certain degree of quantitative easing", which is a good thing since we are undershooting our inflation targets as is.

They’re not technically toxic debt, but the market definitely prefers cash now, so they’re unwanted just the same.

Re: U.S. Labor Department allows unemployment benefits for coronavirus

#89

Post by dmix »

PeterStuer wrote: post #82
thrill wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we can afford a $1.5 trillion injection into the markets, then we can afford moving the SS retirement age to 60 where the most vulnerable exist.

You will gt downvoted like there is no tomorrow here, but you are factually correct. Sadly people do not grasp our fiduciary currency based financial system. We create money all in extreme amounts all the time. Money is not some sort of 'ore' which we have to mine out of the planet through hard labor. It's a resource we create at will by simple agreement and at the push of a button in unlimited quantities. The 'downs…

Comparing fed injections to expanding social security spending is not "factually correct" though, it's a very weak analogy and two very different things.

You can be critical of QE, monetary policy, and the general priorities of the government but it doesn't make OP's point a helpful one. Especially considering the lack of centralized control, let alone the various other major differences between it and entitlement spending.

Re: U.S. Labor Department allows unemployment benefits for coronavirus

#90

Post by zymhan »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #83
thrill wrote: post #2

You know what else would help? Since the risk curve bends sharply upward at age 60, immediately allow anyone to start drawing full social security payments at age 60, without any sort of penalty. Those companies that value their older workers would now be in the position of making work-from-home a full-fledged option, because the bargaining power would shift to where it belongs - the worker.

Maybe a one time payment from the Government, say $3K for 2 months, without changing anything.

I wonder if the Social Security program is allowed to do something like a one off payment, I've never heard that floated before.
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