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Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

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Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#511

Post by okbake »

wil421 wrote: post #298
Vinnl wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason that it's could be less bad is due to government measures - e.g. in the Netherlands, employers can apply for the government to pay 90% of your salary for a while while they pay the other 10%, so that they can keep employing you until (hopefully) after things start up again. No idea how that compares to other companies, but if it differs, that's one possible explanation for different results.

Not sure if the percentage is the same but small businesses (less than 500 employees) in the US can apply for a loan that converts to a grant if you keep your current employment levels for a set time. 75% of the loan has to be for payroll and the other part for rent, mortgage, and utilities. https://www.uschamber.com/series/above-the-fold/how-access-s...

Unfortunately the PPP money has all been dried up as of today, and many small businesses weren't able to take advantage of it. This site was put together to track how many businesses have received it, though it relies on self-reporting from the businesses so it won't be entirely accurate: https://www.covidloantracker.com/

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#513

Post by davnicwil »

nemo1618 wrote: post #482
davnicwil wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great question! Firstly, and very importantly, the agent is open source ( https://github.com/boxci/boxci ) so you can see exactly what it does and even build it from source if you want. I should mention Box CI isn't launched yet, everything is still in beta including the agent. The Box CI service doesn't have any way to send requests to or send commands to agents - the requests are one-way, agent to service only, wit…

Neat! I love the model of giving powerful CI tools directly to the user. I ended up with a similar solution for my personal projects: a private bors-style CI GitHub bot, written from scratch, running on my own hardware, that I control via GitHub comments (the bot ignores comments from other users). It's quite spartan, but it gets the job done, and I love that a) it's fast, b) I can see exactly what happened, down to…

Very cool - yeah I know exactly what you mean, running CI workflows on your own machine is just so nice.

When something fails it makes the debug and retry loop just as simple and fast as when you're developing, and there's really nothing like watching a production build run and ship in literally like a minute, just as fast as if you're building and starting your local dev server :-)

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#514

Post by not2b »

aero142 wrote: post #509
lukifer wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that policy makers bear primary culpability; but that doesn't absolve you morally for your individual choices. This is not "free money", in the sense of "I found a $100 bill on the street"; it comes from the sweat of taxpayers, both present and future. (In self-interested terms, it also doesn't absolve a company from harm to their brand and reputation, if/when it becomes public that they accepted a bailout th…

I'm curious. If a person qualifies for the stimulus check but has enough in savings to get through the next few months, do you believe they should refuse because it comes from the sweat of taxpayers as well?

There isn't a guarantee that the economic impact will be over after the next few months. But someone who is in really good shape but still eligible for the money could donate all or part of it to charity.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#515

Post by cannaceo »

texasbigdata wrote: post #510
cannaceo wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't see proving harm by COVID19 as a requirement for applying for the loan. The loan is to minimize unemployment claims. Without the loan I would've been looking to make proactive staff cuts immediately despite not being dramatically impacted by COVID19. With the loan I feel comfortable keeping my workforce employed. My understanding is the requirement to not pay back the loan is that you keep 75% of your staff…

It's literally on the form. There's criminal liability for mis-stating.

I should have been more clear. I was not required to prove economic hardship by providing financials.

The application makes you certify the following: "Current economic uncertainty makes this loan request necessary to support the ongoing operations of the Applicant."

This is fairly ambiguous language putting most applicants in a defensible position regardless of firm performance over the next 6 months. There was a lot of litigation against lenders during the last QE so banks were more cautious about compliance. However, I was still not asked for tax returns, any financial statements, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#517

Post by hhmc »

wjmao88 wrote: post #430
sleepychu wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a bit of context, at London startup the furlough scheme is very unlikely to be 80% of their salary because it is capped at 30k per year pre-tax/80% of your salary whichever is lower. That said, I'm surprised half of people turned down 2k/month to job hunt.

Wouldn't you be able to job hunt while taking the furlough scheme money?

It might be worth getting the notice period (for which I assume you must be paid fully) ticking ASAP.

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#518

Post by overkalix »

aarroyoc wrote: post #171
roadbeats wrote: post #100

Can we say that the layoffs are mostly happening in US ? I can't see that trend in Europe, correct me if I'm wrong.

I agree. In Spain most people are getting ERTEs, which allow you to keep the job, the state pays 80% of your salary. Also firing people is now temporaly banned (technically not, but it's much much more difficult to do until we're out of the state of alarm).

> the state pays 80% of your salary.

Eventually...

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#519

Post by abandonliberty »

floatrock wrote: post #463
Spooky23 wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the covid costs are actually not terribly high. The other thing is that as millions of employees get laid off, millions of health insurance premiums stop getting paid.

> as millions of employees get laid off, millions of health insurance premiums stop getting paid. Failure mode of a system where healthcare is tied to employment -- works as long as people keep shuffling around, shatters when a systemic black swan comes along. And no, cobra doesn't address it. It's just a patch. Anyone actually pay cobra for more than a month or two? You quickly realize just how expensive employer gr…

>a systemic black swan comes along

Nassim would like people to stop saying this. I view him as an authority on the subject.

https://mobile.twitter.com/nntaleb/status/124494673873917952...

Re: Ask HN: Who Is Firing?

#520

Post by lukifer »

aero142 wrote: post #509
lukifer wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that policy makers bear primary culpability; but that doesn't absolve you morally for your individual choices. This is not "free money", in the sense of "I found a $100 bill on the street"; it comes from the sweat of taxpayers, both present and future. (In self-interested terms, it also doesn't absolve a company from harm to their brand and reputation, if/when it becomes public that they accepted a bailout th…

I'm curious. If a person qualifies for the stimulus check but has enough in savings to get through the next few months, do you believe they should refuse because it comes from the sweat of taxpayers as well?

I've seen at least one person in my social network, whose employment hasn't been impacted, offer to give their check to someone who is furloughed or laid-off.

It's tough to say, since there's always the risk of more layoffs; and there's an argument that the payments are stimulus as well as relief, and so it's perfectly legitimate to accept, so long as one spends it. But as a matter of conscience/citizenship, if one is economically stable, it's at least worth considering giving it to someone in greater need. Everyone's circumstance is different, and a lot of people were economically struggling before the virus, so I think we each answer that question for ourselves.

That said, I think the corporate bailouts are in a different category than individual payments. The $1200 relief check system is hardly perfect, but it's at least transparent and fair: every citizen of the same income bracket gets the same flat payment. But we all know there's a lot of wheeling and dealing and favors and promises taking place with the bailout money, and there's no objective algorithm for deciding who gets paid, or how much. If a travel agency gets $50m when they really could've stayed afloat for $25m, how exactly would anyone arrive at that definitive number, including the travel agency themselves? But if a company takes a bailout when they don't truly need it at all, I think it's fair for taxpayers to cry foul.

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