Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more • Hacker News Board

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#511

Post by grappler » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 3:24 AM UTC

huevosabio wrote: post #181

mikepurvis wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an interesting piece in this week's Atlantic on the motivation for having states declare bankruptcy: "Under the Constitution, bankruptcy is a power entirely reserved to the federal government. An American bankruptcy is overseen in federal court, by a federal judge, according to federal law. That’s why federal law can allow U.S. cities to go bankrupt, as many have done over the years. That’s why the financia…

This is a pretty grim path to follow. If States are to go bankrupt and subject to federal imposition of what debts must be paid, then it may push States to seek further sovereignity. An example being pressure to mint their currency. This is currently banned in the constitution, but if things get dire... they could simply ignore?

The train of thought I'm on now is: why was keeping the Union together back in the civil war such a great thing?

Now we have this bloc of red states in the South who are backward, racist, intolerant science deniers, and they've managed to get just enough on the winning side of the electoral map to make the advanced, multicultural, cosmopolitan science-respecting blue states' lives miserable.

That chunk of states should be a separate country. Then they can go their own way and the rest of us can carry on without them.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#512

Post by lsh123 » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 3:24 AM UTC

dantheman wrote: post #485

cactus2093 wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, in SF for example the median income is $96,000. And I think that's take-home salary, so the median cost to the employer with benefits is well over $100k. It doesn't seem at all unreasonable that important city workers should make at least the area median wage. Having all of the local government employees be the lowest paid people in the city doesn't seem like a good thing. It is also kind of shocking to s…

It's great for city workers to make a great wage - just pay for it. Stop pulling shenanigans with pension systems. We just had 11 years of unprecedented growth and pension systems only got worse - expanding benefits and maintaining impossible growth targets. City and state governments don't pay the bills - that's the problems. Any cuts they make will hurt them in elections, so they just kick the can down the road to…

And another important component is unions. Politician wants to get elected. Unions can help. So politician have to pay back unions later. Can’t break this cycle unless public worker unions are banned.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#513

Post by tiles » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 3:27 AM UTC

grappler wrote: post #511

huevosabio wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty grim path to follow. If States are to go bankrupt and subject to federal imposition of what debts must be paid, then it may push States to seek further sovereignity. An example being pressure to mint their currency. This is currently banned in the constitution, but if things get dire... they could simply ignore?

The train of thought I'm on now is: why was keeping the Union together back in the civil war such a great thing? Now we have this bloc of red states in the South who are backward, racist, intolerant science deniers, and they've managed to get just enough on the winning side of the electoral map to make the advanced, multicultural, cosmopolitan science-respecting blue states' lives miserable. That chunk of states shou…

The abolition of slavery was worth it. But the failure of Reconstruction allowed the south to backside right where they were.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#514

Post by mayneack » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 3:27 AM UTC

nimbius wrote: post #300

wonderwonder wrote: post #121

Layoffs are mounting, alternative work is limited, and the unemployment systems in many states are either broken or running out of funding. Add the federal governments indicated desire to let blue states go bankrupt and we are looking at a good combination to enter a depression. Its a pretty sobering time.

>Layoffs are mounting We just fired our cleaning crew this morning and cut hours for the entire shop floor. We are a mid-size, midwestern diesel repair shop similar to Western Truck Exchange. I used to just do valve work and major overhauls, now I carry garbage to the dumpster and fix the copiers in the front office too. >alternative work is limited non-existant out here really, but the real thing no one seems to be…

Here in Los Angeles, crime is actually down. https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/07/us/los-angeles-coronavirus-cr...

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#515

Post by mikepurvis » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 3:28 AM UTC

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #456

altoidaltoid wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider also that alot of retirees don't stay in Illinois as well. So other states are benefiting from the discretionary spending funded by Illinois taxpayers

Why would that be a problem? The salary & pension are compensation for the career of labor. No part of the pension that person _earned_ is owed back to the original state. That doesn’t make any sense.

When the pension is an unfunded liability, it does change the calculus if everyone receiving it will be spending it off in Florida and not back into the local economy that's paying for it.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#516

Post by youeseh » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 3:30 AM UTC

adelHBN wrote: post #510

Ok, I seriously don't get this. How is the stock market doing so well? This article about Lyft is just but one glimpse of what's happening to the economy. And it ain't going to get better any time soon. I've been waiting to invest in the stock market, but am totally whiplashed by the rise of stock market. It's completely disconnected from the real economy.

"The stock market is not the economy"

As a result of the 2008 crisis, the US Government / Fed started pumping money. The market bottomed out just before they started pumping money in March of 2009 and then started recovering.

Someone in June of 2009 would have experienced the same emotions that you're experiencing now because foreclosures continued to mount, maxing out in the second half of 2009 with a significant number of foreclosures occurring in 2010 as well.

I read somewhere that the economy didn't fully recover until 2015. By then, stocks were already quite expensive.

This is probably what has been driving many people to buy stocks now. That and being bored at home.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#517

Post by amykyta » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 3:32 AM UTC

adelHBN wrote: post #510

Ok, I seriously don't get this. How is the stock market doing so well? This article about Lyft is just but one glimpse of what's happening to the economy. And it ain't going to get better any time soon. I've been waiting to invest in the stock market, but am totally whiplashed by the rise of stock market. It's completely disconnected from the real economy.

There is someone more informed to comment on this but the reason is the Fed. They are buying corporate debt. That’s a pretty drastic thing to be doing. This recent commentary by the Fed chairman describes the scene, the money tap is wide open. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-29/powell-vo...

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#518

Post by bretpiatt » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 3:32 AM UTC

Gibbon1 wrote: post #474

newfriend wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If California is so great, why are so many people moving away? [1] California is being propped up by the tech industry because historically the biggest tech companies are headquartered here, which caused all the talent to be clustered here, and then new tech companies were forced to be here to attract that talent. Obviously, smart, intelligent people move here because jobs are here, and capital invests here because t…

Anecdote: Friend manages a call center in California. Couple of years ago Texas using a bunch of sleazy tax incentives tried to get the center moved from California to Texas. Friend said none of the gay boys wanted to move. And parents were horrified by the idea sending their kids to public school in Texas. Move never happened as a result.

Data [1] vs. anecdote: Austin is one of top same sex metros in the United States and San Antonio is one of the top places for same sex couples to raise children (in Texas public schools).

[1] https://www.sanantoniomag.com/a-family-town-for-all/

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#519

Post by bamboozled » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 3:36 AM UTC

amykyta wrote: post #517

adelHBN wrote: post #510

Ok, I seriously don't get this. How is the stock market doing so well? This article about Lyft is just but one glimpse of what's happening to the economy. And it ain't going to get better any time soon. I've been waiting to invest in the stock market, but am totally whiplashed by the rise of stock market. It's completely disconnected from the real economy.

There is someone more informed to comment on this but the reason is the Fed. They are buying corporate debt. That’s a pretty drastic thing to be doing. This recent commentary by the Fed chairman describes the scene, the money tap is wide open. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-29/powell-vo...

What I don't understand is, what are the consequences are? If there is no, why didn't this just always happen and we'd all be rich?

I've read other articles which say that essentially we're losing the ability to really valuate equities because of all this free money being injected into junk bonds etc hides the true valuation.

As far as I can tell, stocks are more valuable, but only numerically, they're actually more worthless than before because the company and the economy as a whole has stopped.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#520

Post by mikepurvis » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 3:37 AM UTC

dnautics wrote: post #503

notyourday wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would prefer that states have more power and we further decentralize authority away from the federal government. No EPA. No DOE. No equality under the law. No EOC. No NLRB. No Amtrak. No federal enforcement of consent decrees. No voting right act. No gay marriage, etc? Edit: Thanks for downvotes. Every single one of these is enforced by federal and not state courts. It is federal court that gave us Roe v. Wade, f…

Have you ever met a DOE program manager? Have you ever personally dealt with an EOC lawsuit? I've done both, and let me tell you neither of those organizations comes anywhere near what you seem to imply they do. I'm not convinced society wouldn't be better without them.

A major thing the DOE does is keep track of where the world's plutonium is— it's energy-related, but also a national security matter. Michael Lewis's excellent book The Fifth Risk examines some of these agency functions in the context of what was lost when there Trump administration stepped into power with essentially no transition plan or concept of how to run them.