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3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

wsj.com

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

#311

Post by wpietri »

crazy1van wrote: post #192
wpietri wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it? Let's set aside the scorekeeping systems we use (money, profit, ownership, wealth) for a moment. I see no reason to think we can't get people properly fed indefinitely. We'll still have power, water, sewage, bandwidth. And it's not like the shut down businesses will evaporate or anything. The buildings will be there. The equipment will be there. 97%+ of the staff will still be around. Eventually we'll have a…

> We'll still have power, water, sewage, bandwidth Don’t forget about food. There’s a lot of complexity and people involved in getting food from a farm to your local restaurants and grocery stores. If it gets really bad and even a fraction of people in these industries stop working, stay-at-home life might get a lot less comfortable.

As you can see from the sentence before the one you quoted, I didn't forget about it.

I agree there's a lot of complexity there. But it's still a relatively small slice of the population. A friend is a farmer; she's just carrying ahead farming. Compared with urban life, she's been "socially distancing" for years. For the more dense parts of the chain, we need to take other infection-prevention measures. But food production is already pretty good at keeping things clean, and the rest we can work on.

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

#313

Post by gnulinux »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #283
matwood wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if we raise the denominator to make the percentages look better, there is no denying that hospitals are being overwhelmed. The flu often already pushed hospitals to the edge, so even only (heh) 5x worse will cause most hospital systems collapse.

Should 1000 people go unemployed to save one person?

Obviously right? Clearly temporary unemployment of any number of people seems less important than death of thousands, if not millions of people.

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

#314

Post by ikeyany »

qqssccfftt wrote: post #308
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…

"How many people are we willing to kill to keep the economy moving?"

I believe it was Elon Musk that said the future is essentially the sum of human wills.

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

#315

Post by Dylan16807 »

arcadeparade wrote: post #306
graeme wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> after all, globalization is one of the main factors why we're experiencing this deadly pandemic now Not so. Pandemics travelled around the world before globalization. The black death, smallpox in the americas, syphllis. This just increases the speed.

syphilis was also caused by globalization! i hope many travel restrictions become permanent. ban cruises, make tourism difficult and expensive, cut off travel totally between the hemispheres. nature is being completely destroyed by human activity, this is an opportunity to reverse it.

If you're worried about the environment you can just add a carbon recapture tax to gas.

Banning travel between large areas is ridiculous and wouldn't happen. Especially when a policy of quarantine during outbreaks would be equally effective with a vastly smaller cost.

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

#316

Post by dubcanada »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #309
dubcanada wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bunch of armchair developers seem to have been summoned to tell the Federal government how to handle form submissions for an extremely security and privacy intense application using their fancy modern techniques. You are talking about comparing a basic web form with an application for unemployment benefits which must go into a federal tax database and be processed using a what I assume is a garbage mainframe system…

It's "armchair" to say "you get what you deserve if your entire system depends on garbage"? ...okay, whatever you say.

I called it garbage, but really neither of us know.

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

#317

Post by mrguyorama »

wmeredith wrote: post #170
csomar wrote: post #146

> A week ago, he said he had “a good middle-class job” which paid him $35.50 an hour plus health care and retirement benefits. Now he is struggling to figure out how he’ll pay a $300 electric bill and $1,000 in rent for his townhouse. He also lost his health insurance. You make $35.5/hour in (I suppose?) a stable job but if the work stops for a week, you struggle with a $300 bill? I know some people are living payche…

60% of Millennials (basically people in their 30's) don't have enough saved for a $1000 emergency: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/19/60-percent-of-millennials-ca...

I'm pretty sure those millennials aren't making $35 an hour

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

#318

Post by toomuchtodo »

tathougies wrote: post #265
toomuchtodo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The authority has been delegated to states, each state is making their own decisions.

No. The authority was never given to the federal government. Key difference. The federal government cannot grant that which it does not have

We're saying the same thing. No need to be pedantic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States%27_rights

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

#319

Post by tonyhb »

zaroth wrote: post #254
TeMPOraL wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just the consequence of market economy. Everyone is under pressure to "cut out fat", make themselves "lean". That applies everywhere across the supply chain. First thing that goes is every redundancy, buffer and spare capacity - things that would mitigate a crisis like this. It's because the companies that "cut out fat" can grow faster, sell cheaper and profit more, compared to their competitors that have risk h…

Have you considered what the cost of adding these “mandated buffers and redundancies” to the overall economy? Have you attempted to integrate these costs over time when there isn’t a pandemic going on, and made any attempt to determine the net effect? Have you considered that you can’t start a small business with buffers and redundancies? And that small business accounts for 50% of overall employment?

Yes. His point is that game theory and economic principles favour the leaner, therefore every company moves to max. efficiency with JIT supply chains and max leverage.

The only way around this is regulation if we want to be able to withstand crises _without_ bailouts.

That's currently not the situation, which is why bailouts happen.

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

#320

Post by noarchy »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #261
evan_ wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm assuming the government does its job What has led you to make this assumption?

It could very well be a bad assumption, but efforts seem ot be being made now to get people support. Hopefully they get there or this is going to be really bad.

>Hopefully they get there or this is going to be really bad.

The right thing for governments to do is to help mitigate the damage they've caused by ordering massive shutdowns. They can't do one without the other otherwise, indeed, it will be really bad.

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