531–540 of 595 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When you take a job and its benefits are not properly funded or the funding assumptions are insane (8% growth). That's on you.
Are you serious? You expect a 22 year old firefighter to know how well funded the pension system is? Give me a break.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
The consequences of the 2008-2009 financial crisis were the defacto nationalization of large US banks as Systemically Important Financial Institutions (SIFIs). Basically in exchange for taking on more stringent regulation and capital controls, and the separation of prop trading and deposit banking through Dodd-Frank's Volcker Rule, large US banks were declared too big to fail and would be backstopped by the Fed going forward.
I think what you're seeing now is perhaps something similar for all large US corporations. The Fed is essentially declaring the S&P500 as TBTF by opening the trough to all of them. The Fed maybe doesn't want to do this (they are economists after all, and they know this isn't a good path to start heading down), but they're also the only governmental entity capable of direct action without political blowback in this crisis.
I think the market sees this as the Fed setting a floor for equity prices, and maybe it's right?
In the end, the music can only keep playing for so long while chairs are slowly removed from the room. The market can stay irrational for a long time, but it must eventually face reality. The Fed can print money so that companies have working capital (which they will hoard) but can't print a vaccine or your mortgage payment or the customers your neighbourhood restaurant needs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I didn't know that. I thought it was because of their engineering chops.
I'm pretty sure it was stock based. For one, Netflix is like, completely different than the rest. They only hire senior engineers and basically substitute a talent pipeline with giant wages. FAANG internships always sounded weird, considering, y'know, Netflix doesn't do internships.
Uber/airbnb/lyft were considered in the same tier as facebook/google before corona. With google also slowing hiring, are the engineers laid off all going to be absorbed by facebook?
This will play our more like the dotcom burst than the 2008 crisis. For most younger people here this may come as a shock but tech jobs can disappear, for years. The job market in 2019 felt a lot like the job market in 1999, people rushing to get upskilled so that they could get into software and make ridiculous money. After the dotcom burst huge number of people left tech, or at least left the world of software deve…
- before Coronavirus, there was a shortage of people to work in software (if you believe BLS)
- software employment represents a very small portion of the labor force
- there are many problems that have just happened that will require software to solve
- while there are undoubtedly industries that will be hard hit, there are many software-intensive sectors that will see growth as a result of the crisis (ecommerce for one)
- the world in 1999 was much different. the internet was a curiosity, now it's essential.
- and finally, companies that are looking to implement efficiencies (read: lay people off) turn to .. software
edit, one more:
- many software positions over the past decade+ have been filled by immigrants. Going forward the US is going to be much less friendly to immigration, so competition for jobs will go down for US workers
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you serious? You expect a 22 year old firefighter to know how well funded the pension system is? Give me a break.
Yes. Stop absolving adults of responsibilities they’re well capable of owning. You don’t get to hide being big dollar signs and claim ignorance.
If we're lucky, we find out about these things when a government changes hands and an audit is conducted - typically years after the fact. Also, one can start one's career under a sound system that is eroded through mismanagement.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, but people took those jobs in large part because of those pensions. It is part of the entire compensation package. They often times took less money up front in return for better pensions. The problem is that this was not properly budgeted for when funding the pensions.
I don't blame workers for taking a good deal. I do blame the folks making crazy promises that have no way to fund without being bailed out.
When the folks making crazy promises are dead and/or gone by the time their promises are broken when the funds come up short, the workers who took the good deal are left holding the bag.
We must retroactively assign blame to the worker who was lured into accepting obvious false promises. It is perversely the most compassionate thing we can do: blame and shame past workers for making stupid deals. We do this so that future generations will learn the hard lesson that governments cannot be trusted with their investments. There is no power in investment.
Blaming past politicians for their malfeasance is exactly how we enable today's politicians to keep kicking the can down the road.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
so why should people in texas pay for the stupid budget decisions of san francisco when they didn’t waste their money? it’s moral hazard
Texas is a taker state so California has been paying to support texas for a very long time. Why the moral hazard now? I’ll be fine if we distribute federal expenditures based on tax collections by state. Means California could lower taxes. https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/361668/
California is no longer a net contributor to the union[1], since SALT reform.
1. https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/23/newsom-responds-to-mc...
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…
His unwillingness to not solve the state's pension problems should be applauded. the amount of unfunded liabilities is in the hundreds of billions of dollars and approaching a trillion if it has not passed that already. This all happened because the number of public servants who are pulling in over 100k has skyrocketed... 100k+ in retirement.. with millions past 50k! Think about that 50k in pay plus medical. These pe…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The federal government was attacked to touch off the Civil War. Like, by men with guns. That's a rather critical distinction.
I’m not sure it particularly matters which side started it, you still had basically open violent conflict between democrats and republicans for decades, before and after the war.
I dunno, that feels like that kinda matters, too.
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.
Why only let blue states go bankrupt?
What none of them realize or care about is when power shifts the other way - there will be calls to stop funding red states.
Red states take and take, and hurt blue states whenever they can. Look at the hurricane in NY and NJ and the response to it, and the response in LA. We're tired of always pitching in to help and do the right thing even as the people we help demonize us and try to hurt us. Enough. Fund yourselves with your conservative politics. We'll use our money to give ourselves a state worth living in.