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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

#341

Post by scottLobster »

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…

1. The supposedly superior Chinese system is largely responsible for the outbreak being as bad as it is. Never mind the initial coverup and lies about the nature of the disease, their allowance of those horrifically unsanitary wildlife markets is crime enough.

2. I'm wondering what makes you think the US is incapable of adapting. Will we ever be able to do a China-style lockdown? Probably not, but that's a feature not a bug. There are other ways of dealing with a pandemic, and I sincerely doubt anyone from the west, or most of the east for that matter is going to be moving to China for their pandemic-response measures.

If anything I see this as a negative for China. The experience has revealed just how vulnerable China-dependent supply chains are, particularly for medications and medical devices. I expect both political and social moves to diversify away from dependence on China, which would hardly make them more of a Hegemon.

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

#342

Post by arcadeparade »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #315
arcadeparade wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think the list of things that people believe are 'ridiculous and would never happen' has greatly reduced in size in the last few weeks.

Also, there's a lot more to environmental destruction than excess carbon.

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

#343

Post by cableshaft »

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…

Also doesn't take into account those who have had reduced hours or salary at their jobs, like my wife's entire company (at least the employees that didn't get furloughed at her company). She got reduced to 3 days a week, for a 40% salary reduction.

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

#344

Post by shigawire »

scottLobster wrote: post #285
HappySweeney wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If this lockdown continues indefinitely the death numbers from the economic fallout will likely eclipse those of the pandemic. Seeing that doing nothing will likely lead to lead to millions of deaths, how would the lockdown possibly kill more than that? Are you under the impression people will just willingly starve to death, or that fighting over food will get so bad that millions of people will die?

First of all the "millions of deaths" comes from one model. There are many others and we haven't tested enough to know the true spread or lethality of the virus in a general population. It's quite possible that many people have already had covid-19 and were completely asymptomatic, which would make the death rate look much less scary. Anyone who tells you with certainty that "millions will die" is going off incomplet…

>UK had the best original strategy of locking down the people most at risk, make sure they're taken care of as much as possible, and letting everyone else get herd immunity as quick as possible.

The problem in the UK is that they seemed to have no substance to the plan. Yes, hard lock down the people at risk, but where is the government response to make that possible?

If they had a well developed plan to carry out those words it might be worth doing, but they didn't and then caved when it was clear it was just rhetoric.

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

#346

Post by throwaway_USD »

treyfitty wrote: post #327
throwaway_USD wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The danger was businesses losing customers (revenue/income), which these initial numbers confirm...but on the other hand these jobless folks (and the whole country)just took out a $6T loan, of which $5.75T is going to these businesses ($1.75 will not have to be paid back and $4T will be interest free loans, and likely in may cases these companies will actually have negative interest rates, in other words they will ma…

But it's been confirmed that stock buybacks will not be allowed for companies receiving a bailout. Am I missing something more here? https://www.marketwatch.com/story/coronavirus-stimulus-packa...

>Am I missing something more here?

Apparently...they are doing the buy backs now (like right now) while they are flush with cash/no expenses, main street can't invest, and before they get their bailout cash. Never mind the buy back prohibitions are being majorly overstated.

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

#347

Post by commandlinefan »

ithinkinstereo wrote: post #289
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…

I went to my local 7-11 a couple of weeks ago to get some cash at the ATM. Next to it was a garbage bin for throwing away your receipt. Out of curiosity, I went through about a dozen and not a single one had a balance above $1,000. Most were below $500. There is little financial literacy in this country. Basic lessons about opening a bank account, the difference between checkings and savings, etc. is not something th…

> Most were below $500.

> There is little financial literacy in this country.

Well, technically if you're drawing cash, you should be drawing it from your checking account and if you're saving it should be in a savings account, so your checking account balance should be relatively low.

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

#348

Post by yks »

wmeredith wrote: post #89
PaulRobinson wrote: post #23

A staggering number, and unprecedented in the modern era. I'm not in the US or an America, but my (retired), Father is and for the sake of the people around him and his family I hope this is the point where the American political system - and Republicans in particular - realise that their ideologies are dead. In the UK we saw an Old-Etonian Tory Prime Minister in the space of a couple of weeks: - Effectively national…

> and Republicans in particular - realise that their ideologies are dead Good luck. Their base doesn't care. I was speaking with my father a couple days ago, who is a US Board-Certified surgeon and ran his own practice for 40 years. He's a smart guy, but firmly lives in the Fox News/Rush Limbaugh bubble. He was saying how he was hoping this crisis would put the final nail in the coffin ... for the corrupt democrats.…

what is the reasoning (genuinely curious). Are democrats somehow failing America re: COVID-19?

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

#349

Post by danans »

wyclif wrote: post #304
danans wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> our supply chain for essential pharmaceuticals and medical equipment farmed out to evil, duplicitous regimes like the Chinese state. There's a legitimate discussion to be had about medical equipment supply chains, but describing China this way does a huge disservice to that discussion. > They ... probably killed the doctors who blew the whistle on the cover-up. These are facts, not conjecture. That's literally an e…

The doctor who blew the whistle on the virus is dead now.

He's dead from the virus. Nobody murdered him.

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

#350

Post by trackone »

hopfog wrote: post #128

Just to illustrate how absurd this number is: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EUCTISVXQAcIKEb?format=png&name=...

This is messing up charts so much that maybe in a couple years we will be removing 2020 from the data just to have a chart that doesn't have a crazy x-axis.
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