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

361–370 of 711 posts

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

#361

Post by verify_sirrah »

yks wrote: post #348
wmeredith wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

I believe many are upset over them temporarily blocking the stimulus bill.

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

#362

Post by danans »

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…

This boils down to the reality that governments can take measures to mitigate the economic damage caused by an idled labor force (direct payments to workers), but can do very little to mitigate the economic damage caused by a sick or dying labor force.

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

#363

Post by verify_sirrah »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #318
tathougies wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No, you are getting it backwards. The states predated the general government. The states delegated powers to the general government.

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

#364

Post by avalys »

dpcan wrote: post #223

Being a sole proprietor / contractor right now feels hopeless. Nobody is spending money with me right now, projects on hold, no possible way of filing for unemployment. It's worrisome. Thankfully my wife is still working - but she's an administrator at a Nursing Home and people there are starting to get tested - and she's panicking. They are days from having no nurses. She's worried about cleaning crews being sick. S…

Check out the details of the small business forgivable loan package just passed by the Senate. I think they took some actions to help sole proprietors and self-employed people also.

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

#365

Post by MisterBastahrd »

For those playing at home, that's 3.28 million people who probably don't have access to health care now. Many probably didn't before due to the nature of their jobs, but it's going to be interesting to watch the cry for bailout of hospitals from the same politicians who are completely fine otherwise with people going without healthcare.

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

#366

Post by wyclif »

danans wrote: post #349
wyclif wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

He might very well still be alive if the Chinese government hadn't lied about and covered up the existence of the virus.

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

#367

Post by saiya-jin »

mrkramer wrote: post #136
baron_harkonnen wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Germany lost 2 World Wars and today it has greater GDP than UK by $1 trillion. It doesn't matter who is hit harder it matters whose economy is more efficient and has more innovations.

Not much comparable. Just a random difference - Germany was quickly rebuilt because allies want it to be rebuilt, and not let impoverished and destroyed like after WWI. We know how that ended...

When talking about efficiency, I think China might have the upper hand now - they are much more effective in discipline, they don't mind suffering things that are unacceptable for us, and look where they are with COVID - ahead of every-fucking-body else. West looks pathetically weak and ineffective compared to them. Maybe in 2 months things will look differently, but I don't see much data for that now.

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

#368

Post by scottLobster »

HappySweeney wrote: post #323
scottLobster wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The millions of deaths comes from most models, which is why governments the world over are willing to endure economic devastation. Also, we are talking about the US specifically, so bringing in the worldwide death toll from 5th order effects (why not 20th?) seems disingenuous. Finally, the UK changed their strategy away from sequestering the 70+ population because Imperial College told them that would only halve thei…

Clearly we've been looking at different sets of models with different assumptions. I haven't done an objective survey, but I'd dispute "most" predict millions of causalities.

But if we're just talking about the US: The range from the CDC models last I checked is anywhere from 163,000 - 1.7 million for a country of ~330 million.

By comparison the opioid epidemic alone has already killed somewhere between 100,000 - 200,000+ over the last 5 years. And that was largely the result of a kinder, gentler, less dramatic economic shock known as the 2008 recession and decades of preceding industrial decline.

We've already compressed shocks that took months in 2008 to weeks, not the least of which is the record unemployment filings in the posted article. Hence the largest stimulus package in world history being passed in days.

"The economy" is not some vague abstract number on the evening news, and economic shocks do kill people, it's just less tangible than a virus. If this continues for more than a month or two I expect people returning to work out of desperation and then receiving death threats for doing so, and things will get uglier from there if the lockdowns continue.

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

#369

Post by string »

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…

Can you keep the comments like this on Reddit and away from HN, please?

For the non-UK users reading this: almost all of the bullet pointed statements are either incorrect or exaggerated.

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

#370

Post by steveeq1 »

vharuck wrote: post #358
steveeq1 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if that ends up being true?

It might be. But I think the takeaway from "we either let people die from the virus or die from slipping in our economy" should be "let's have an economy that's more robust to disasters."

That's a straw-man argument that no reasonable would disagree with.
Post reply on HN