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U.S. jobless numbers surge as worsening Covid-19 pandemic hurts businesses

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Re: U.S. jobless numbers surge as worsening Covid-19 pandemic hurts businesses

#11

Post by prox »

scohesc wrote: post #3

Man, it's so frustrating seeing all these businesses shutting down (smaller ones are closing for good), meanwhile I'm sure Bezos and the Silicon crew are reporting record profits this year through food deliveries and amazon purchases. I sometimes find it very _very_ hard to not see this all a transfer of wealth from the middle/lower classes to the upper classes - either calculated beforehand or just being taken advan…

The network effect is strong. If I post a comment to stop using Chrome (since there are better alternatives and Chrome is a near monopoly) we already see how resistant to change we are.

If you order something, people don’t search for alternatives. If your tied into an eco system, you don’t move away from it.

Personally I actively try to support local businesses, use only non-monopolies out of principle.

Re: U.S. jobless numbers surge as worsening Covid-19 pandemic hurts businesses

#12

Post by grecy »

scohesc wrote: post #3

Man, it's so frustrating seeing all these businesses shutting down (smaller ones are closing for good), meanwhile I'm sure Bezos and the Silicon crew are reporting record profits this year through food deliveries and amazon purchases. I sometimes find it very _very_ hard to not see this all a transfer of wealth from the middle/lower classes to the upper classes - either calculated beforehand or just being taken advan…

In my small town all the locally-owned and operated coffee shops were forced to close due to government mandates, and most are now closed permanently, because they couldn't afford to pay rent without any customers.

McDonald's and Starbucks? Still churning out coffee to people standing in long lines.

It's infuriating, but what can you do?

Re: U.S. jobless numbers surge as worsening Covid-19 pandemic hurts businesses

#13

Post by Clent »

dougmwne wrote: post #4

As I have watched these headlines, I have constantly been frustrated by the lack of analysis of what's really going on beyond the data point. Which industries lost jobs? Are the losses temporary due to lockdowns or a sign of an accelerating recession? Which regions lost the most jobs? Which income levels are most affected? What percent of jobless people are being covered by unemployment? And so on. A single data poin…

Are you expecting that analysis to be in the headline itself? Several of the questions you pose are answered in the article.

"The losses last month were concentrated among restaurants, bars, hotels and entertainment venues. Educational services, mostly colleges and universities, also cut workers in December. So did film and music studios."

" Economists say it could take several years for the labour market to recover from the pandemic."

"contacts in the leisure and hospitality sectors reported renewed employment cuts due to stricter containment measures."

Re: U.S. jobless numbers surge as worsening Covid-19 pandemic hurts businesses

#14

Post by clav3 »

DisjointedHunt wrote: post #5

This is the picture that played out across Spain and Greece in the early part of this decade ((We're a 1/5th part through "this decade, wow) Sudden, elevated incidents of economic catastrophe leading to a massive decline in economic output and the underlying opportunities available to a few generations of intelligent people. This led to a significant decline in wealth creation relative to the rest of the emerging wor…

I think you mean "century" (10years) not "decade" (100years)

Re: U.S. jobless numbers surge as worsening Covid-19 pandemic hurts businesses

#15

Post by fabianhjr »

It is grimmer to look at the labour participation rate: https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-lab...

If anything between outsourcing and automation employment isn't coming back. (And the employment that does come back will be at sub-minimum wage 12-hour days precarized "gigs" or 3 "half-time" jobs)

Re: U.S. jobless numbers surge as worsening Covid-19 pandemic hurts businesses

#16

Post by maxerickson »

tw04 wrote: post #10
scohesc wrote: post #3

Man, it's so frustrating seeing all these businesses shutting down (smaller ones are closing for good), meanwhile I'm sure Bezos and the Silicon crew are reporting record profits this year through food deliveries and amazon purchases. I sometimes find it very _very_ hard to not see this all a transfer of wealth from the middle/lower classes to the upper classes - either calculated beforehand or just being taken advan…

What else could you call it? You can't drop taxes on the wealthiest Americans who are seeing the lions share of wealth transferred to them and then have the government spend like a drunken sailor to try to keep the economy from tanking. SOMEONE has to pay for those stimulus checks and it appears right now it's turning into a loan that our great grandchildren will bear the responsibility of so that Bezos and Co can se…

The government can just keep borrowing until the currency collapses, there is no need to actually pay the debt down.

Re: U.S. jobless numbers surge as worsening Covid-19 pandemic hurts businesses

#17

Post by centimeter »

scohesc wrote: post #3

Man, it's so frustrating seeing all these businesses shutting down (smaller ones are closing for good), meanwhile I'm sure Bezos and the Silicon crew are reporting record profits this year through food deliveries and amazon purchases. I sometimes find it very _very_ hard to not see this all a transfer of wealth from the middle/lower classes to the upper classes - either calculated beforehand or just being taken advan…

This entire pandemic response is 100% the modern equivalent of the liquidation of the Kulaks. There's no way around it. If you thought wealth inequality was bad before...

Re: U.S. jobless numbers surge as worsening Covid-19 pandemic hurts businesses

#18

Post by slowmovintarget »

jorblumesea wrote: post #6

Hardly surprising, the US strategy has been lockdowns (good!) but without consistent aid to people and small businesses (bad!). The stay home and don't spread idea is a good one but needs to be backed up by actual assistance or aid. Pitiful amount of assistance from the federal government. We had one round of adequate funding right as this started and then basically nothing else. Money ran out, Congress was deadlocke…

Right, and banks gave away the money to businesses that were good at paperwork (including some owned by politicians who got preferential treatment). The money, for the most part, didn't go where it was needed.

I know it would be next to impossible here in the U.S., but one of the things China did for the lockdown was to declare a rent abatement for anyone not allowed to do business. This wasn't a suspension where you got hammered later. You just did not pay rent while you had no income. End of story.

It was a temporary suspension of the economy in order to get back to a more normal level of operation. Australia is another example of this.

We got theater, fraud, and politicization instead.

Re: U.S. jobless numbers surge as worsening Covid-19 pandemic hurts businesses

#19

Post by wcoenen »

scohesc wrote: post #3

Man, it's so frustrating seeing all these businesses shutting down (smaller ones are closing for good), meanwhile I'm sure Bezos and the Silicon crew are reporting record profits this year through food deliveries and amazon purchases. I sometimes find it very _very_ hard to not see this all a transfer of wealth from the middle/lower classes to the upper classes - either calculated beforehand or just being taken advan…

> I sometimes find it very _very_ hard to not see this all a transfer of wealth from the middle/lower classes to the upper classes - either calculated beforehand or just being taken advantage of now I don't think it matters.

Wait, what? You casually suggest that the pandemic was planned as a conspiracy against the middle class, but you don't think it matters whether it was a conspiracy or not? Please clarify if I misunderstood.

Re: U.S. jobless numbers surge as worsening Covid-19 pandemic hurts businesses

#20

Post by centimeter »

I think it's disingenuous how all of these news articles phrase it as if the pandemic itself was responsible for hurting these businesses. In reality, the effect of covid alone on business would be very small for most industries. The thing that's actually destroying these businesses (and the middle-class wealth behind them) is the government reaction to the pandemic, not the pandemic itself.
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