Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 711 posts

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#181

Post by pjc50 »

scottLobster wrote: post #81
sundaeofshock wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? There were a number of submissions yesterday to HN discussing the relative merits of sacrificing millions for the sake of the market. Perhaps you missed those?

Not sure if this was your intent, but "sacrificing millions for the sake of the Market" sounds like you're trying to shift away from the point that right now about 3.28 million more folks (probably more) are wondering how to pay their rent/mortgages and feed their children. If this lockdown continues indefinitely the death numbers from the economic fallout will likely eclipse those of the pandemic. But nah, the "mark…

This is where it's very important to distinguish between financial conditions and material conditions. Feeding children and supplying respirators and masks are material conditions, dependent on the production and distribution systems.

Paying rent and mortgage, on the other hand, isn't material. If you don't pay it nothing material changes - it's not an iron law of the world in the way that hunger is, evictions are a choice. Admittedly it transfers the problem to someone else, but if the solution to maintaining everyone fed includes them then they're not going to go hungry.

Financial conditions also have a time tradeoff. Reducing retirement funds affects material conditions in the future. Or the date at which people are able to retire.

If you had a button you could press which let you retire immediately, but (with probability P) took the life of some random person in the world, would you press it? With what value of P?

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#182

Post by circumvent123 »

big_chungus wrote: post #73
Kaze404 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I don't understand about this line of thinking is how do you expect sick people from working? Sure, not everyone will die but a significant portion of the population will get infected and need at the very least to stay home for a week or two. How is that situation better than where we're at now?

3.28 million people are already out of work, likely a good deal more than that. One million are most at risk. There won't be zero impact, but that's less than a third, right out of the gate. Long-term we'll see significant increases in unemployment on the "shut-it-down" path. To clarify based on your reply to this comment, my point was that we've already seen more people out of work than the estimated worst-case 1.2…

Death is worse than unemployment. That's a sick comparison you are making.

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#183

Post by steveeq1 »

_y5hn wrote: post #105
rubber_duck wrote: post #35

And this is just the start. While I think the US response to Corona was slower than the response in my country I feel the US is the only country that's seriously discussing economic repercussions and debating the medical experts. In EU (at least in my country) it's doctors running things and we are in "stop the pandemic at all cost". Everyone is in panic due to Italy situation. But doctors are only trained to see the…

Each country has economic and market mitigations. Some are beginning to copy US model of Gov paying bills outright for a period. If everyone can do this with low cost, there's no reason for high risk and damage to economy later. This incident will make us learn fast. The medical experts do consider economic and market impacts, and there are alignments in governments how to balance everything. However, since this is a…

What about hyperinflation? And why isn't anyone bringing this up?

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#184

Post by pjc50 »

Demiurge wrote: post #177
luma wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Further, unemployment benefits are managed by the states, and those states are running web services which typically see a few hundred hits a day. They are now trying to process tens of thousands of new records each day, and at least in MI the service is absolutely not up to the task. My wife managed to get her filing completed a little after 1am this morning. She was the only one of her 20 coworkers to successfully f…

As a developer I immediately though of the power of queues. Twenty people trying to submit same form does not work for everyone, but a queue processing one person at a time might allow the twenty people to submit within a short time. It is flattening the curve! If I was contracted to fix this ASAP, I would set up an nginx front-end proxy config that doesn't allow more than X sessions and suggest a time in the future…

The matching UK system has a (huge) queue in it: https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252480546/Huge-queues-fo...

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#185

Post by itronitron »

Kaze404 wrote: post #63
cjslep wrote: post #32

I grew up with the puritanical mindset of: "Your intrinsic worth as a human is the money you earn; because the money you earn is from how hard you work; and how hard you work is a reflection of your intrinsic Virtue." Thus I grew up in a family that loathes the unemployed. I really hope -- though I have grave doubts -- that this event gets through to them, so that they can have some personal growth, too.

That is the saddest thing I've ever read on this site. I know there's people who believe that but it's still shocking to me.

This is the view among most Americans, reinforced by the word 'un'employed which suggests that the default condition is for someone to be employed.

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#186

Post by nopinsight »

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #99
dragonwriter wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I like to think this event changes people's perspective on folks out of work in the US. Sure, just like the Depression did. And just like the Depression, a few years of boom times afterwards and that effect will be negated until the next similar event.

After the depression the US emerged as the global hegemon because of major shifts in power that happened as a part of WWII. The US was uniquely adapted to grow to be the global super power at the same time that European nations were taking a huge hit from the war. I suspect this will ultimately lead to China as the new hegemon. We're seeing key advantages to the Chinese state that the US cannot adapt to. Decades of p…

A key determiner is who invents an effective treatment and vaccine first. Many bright young minds globally are paying great attention to Covid-19. If it happens in a country, possibly US, East Asia, or Europe, then the institutions of higher learning in the country would gain immediate prestige. (Pretty sure some teams in China have set its sight on this.)

If it happens in East Asia, that would also be a recognition of their recent rapid improvement in STEM research that's not yet common knowledge, and not recognized by many general rankings.

An academic ranking with some objectivity has 5 Chinese, 1 Korean, and 1 Singaporean universities among global top 10 in biomedical engineering, for example:

http://www.shanghairanking.com/Shanghairanking-Subject-Ranki...

A shift in perception among talents may start a positive feedback loop that propels innovation in East Asia (incl. Singapore) further. Today, many graduate students in top programs in the US are from Asia.

Over the long term, quality and rate of innovations are what determine global leaders (as a sibling comment suggests).

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#187

Post by yotossing »

minikites wrote: post #132
lonelappde wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rare catastrophes are hard to prepare for, because the cost of preparation is expensive. "Routinely happening" once a century or two isn't an easy target.

It's a perfectly achievable target, we just have one political party that prioritizes private corporate profits and the interests of very wealthy citizens above all other societal needs.

> one political party

2

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#188

Post by nerdponx »

mikorym wrote: post #123
stupandaus wrote: post #24

A few things to note: 1. These figures are only new claims as of 3/21, so the numbers will get worse. 2. This is ~2% of the estimated ~160-165M US Workforce. 3. This is nearly 5x (!) the prior record of 671K new jobless claims from 1982, and redefines the scale for jobless claims. [1] 4. This does not account for the countless gig workers that are part of the modern economy that likely did not file for unemployment s…

Not from the US, so not quite in phase with how things work. What can this tell us about actual unemployment and actual people that won't have a job now (short, medium or forever)?

Hard to say. Some of them might still be employed but with zero pay, others might have been laid off, and for others their employers just folded the business.

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#189

Post by spritecranberry »

scottLobster wrote: post #81
sundaeofshock wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? There were a number of submissions yesterday to HN discussing the relative merits of sacrificing millions for the sake of the market. Perhaps you missed those?

Not sure if this was your intent, but "sacrificing millions for the sake of the Market" sounds like you're trying to shift away from the point that right now about 3.28 million more folks (probably more) are wondering how to pay their rent/mortgages and feed their children. If this lockdown continues indefinitely the death numbers from the economic fallout will likely eclipse those of the pandemic. But nah, the "mark…

I wish more people realized this. I already know a few people who have lost their jobs, and several others who have had their hours reduced greatly. The government can't solve that sort of thing, especially if the economy grinds to a halt and tax revenue drops.

Re: 3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

#190

Post by lol2143651 »

minikites wrote: post #132
lonelappde wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rare catastrophes are hard to prepare for, because the cost of preparation is expensive. "Routinely happening" once a century or two isn't an easy target.

It's a perfectly achievable target, we just have one political party that prioritizes private corporate profits and the interests of very wealthy citizens above all other societal needs.

Cringe
Post reply on HN