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Searchable PPP Loan Data

pppreport.org

181–190 of 354 posts

Re: Searchable PPP Loan Data

#181
post #77

So many complaints here. Based on the comments I think there is some misunderstanding about the nuts and bolts of this program. These are loans. They are two year low interest loans. They have to be paid back unless some or all is forgiven. Forgiveness requires documentation on employees retained, wage history, and is capped at $20k/employee maximum. And of course a piece of that comes back to the government in terms…

>I know many households who received $4k+ in stimulus checks that didn't need it. Should they not have taken it? I'd rather have some of the waste money going to families over businesses for once. Families have to worry about loss of income and loss of health during this. Businesses just have to worry about income. Families are more fragile and should be prioritized.

Yeah, I don't understand the obsession with means testing support through such a crisis. Forgetting the issues with means testing in general [0], in this specific case, you can genuinely go from not needing it to needing it pretty quickly.

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means_test#Criticism

Re: Searchable PPP Loan Data

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Should they not have taken it? I seriously considered not cashing my stimulus check until I talked to multiple well off people that cashed their dead relative's checks. There just isnt a cultural expectation in the US that you wouldn't take what you're given. EDIT: Rethinking my comment I'm giving myself too much credit. Since I never got a physical check, I couldn't have "not cashed it" if I wanted to.

You pay taxes. You should take what the government gives you in return. I suppose there are many opinions here, but I have plenty of friends who refuse to take unemployment insurance, when they've paid into it for years (sometimes decades).

Why do you think that is?

Re: Searchable PPP Loan Data

#184
post #43

Just looking through my home town for businesses I know about... A fair number of them I know carried on with business as usual and had no financial problems (one I used to work for). Seems wrong when there are lots of people in the same town lining up outside the unemployment office every day...

Not sure why this comment is being downvoted. I just searched my local city and noticed that our (for profit) ambulance service received a loan: > DIAZ MEMORIAL AMBULANCE SERVICE INC I definitely don't think they saw the number of ambulance rides go down. And also don't think their profits suffered.

Visits (business) were down significantly for ERs. People just weren't coming in with the silly stuff they did pre-covid. Now you might say that's a good thing overall but that doesn't pay the bills...

Re: Searchable PPP Loan Data

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Of particular reference here - startups that laid off employees and /then/ applied for a PPP loan Aren't these exactly the companies that SHOULD have received PPP? They were clearly struggling and without the money were reducing head count already.

Why should taxpayers have bailed out businesses that couldn’t keep employees on payroll though? There is no end in sight to either corona virus or the economic downturn, so it’s just throwing 8 weeks worth of taxpayer money into bad investments. What’s going to happen within 8 weeks to ensure these employees won’t just be let go again?

Because tax payers, through their elected representatives, implemented social policy shutting down economic activity. Businesses operate with a state issued license to operate. If the government seized that license it will be taking private property without compensation in violation of the constitution. So the tax payers can either pay to help companies survive or they can pay for seizures of private property.

Frame it in the alternative, why should businesses have their property seized by public health orders because the tax payers have decided that is the right social policy? Why should some individuals be deprived of liberty and property?

Re: Searchable PPP Loan Data

#186
How interesting it is...not even through the A's yet in my major city and I am seeing peer companies on here reporting more "jobs retained" than they even employ...if that doesn't indicate what a scam this whole thing is, what would it take to make that clear?

Edit to add: further down the list I am seeing tech co's that actually laid off large % of employees that received millions still.

They probably were not counting on this information becoming public (though it obviously is/should be by default)...any respect I may have had for them is no more. Disgusting behavior.

Re: Searchable PPP Loan Data

#187

Of all types of institutions, why should we be giving the banks the right to decide which businesses should be recession proof or not? Personal opinion but I would have required the applicants of these quasi-forgiveness loans to give up 35% of their businesses to the state/county/federal inclusive of all assets and investments non-dischargeable by bankruptcy. We have 100,000 people dead in this country, million dolla…

> why should we be giving the banks the right to decide which businesses should be recession proof or not?

Would you rather have our politicians deciding this?

Re: Searchable PPP Loan Data

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Of particular reference here - startups that laid off employees and /then/ applied for a PPP loan Aren't these exactly the companies that SHOULD have received PPP? They were clearly struggling and without the money were reducing head count already.

Yes, of course one can make that argument and say that it was meant to stave off further reductions. I don't even know if this was a particularly bad way to do things, can't make the perfect the enemy of the good here. I do think that a bunch of this money ended up lining the coffers of businesses that had an "in" with a particular bank or a particularly tax person, just because that's the way these things end up wor…

Two factors:

This was a very smart way to bail out banks indirectly

At least PPP did not protect execs, but given that rank and file was saved, the execs got the reprieve too

Re: Searchable PPP Loan Data

#189

I'm working on a dashboard to map each of these loans geographically: https://www.quiverquant.com/sources/sbaloans It's a slow process (as I've been respectful of the rate-limit on the reverse geocoding API I'm using), but I finished mapping four states and hope to complete the other 46 by the end of this week.

Are the locations in Canada the headquarters of a Canadian company? I've read about non-US companies receiving PPP money so I'm just curious about that.

I checked a bunch and they were all geocoding fails. If you zoom out you can find examples in several countries.

Examples:

All the ones in Ontario, Canada, e.g. Fullmer Construction, are really in Ontario, California.

The Christian Valley School on Artesia boulevard in Alberta was picked up instead of the one in Artesia, CA.

Simpson Labs is geocoded to Valencia, Spain instead of Valencia, CA.

GW Lawrence on Wilson street in Cordoba, Argentina instead of Cordoba, AR.

Re: Searchable PPP Loan Data

#190
post #122
post #77

So many complaints here. Based on the comments I think there is some misunderstanding about the nuts and bolts of this program. These are loans. They are two year low interest loans. They have to be paid back unless some or all is forgiven. Forgiveness requires documentation on employees retained, wage history, and is capped at $20k/employee maximum. And of course a piece of that comes back to the government in terms…

> Forgiveness requires documentation on employees retained, wage history, and is capped at $20k/employee maximum. And of course a piece of that comes back to the government in terms of payroll taxes. Just because a company took a 1M loan, doesn't mean it will be 100% forgiven. I think your misunderstanding is that the rules actually get followed. What happens when everyone in the scheme comes back and says "the econo…

"It's far too political to introduce/enforce anything that makes unemployment numbers worse. It's like a "too big to fail" on a much larger order of magnitude."

Yes and ?

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