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3.28M file for U.S. jobless benefits

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

#451

Post by nxc18 »

scottLobster wrote: post #341
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…

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 no…

1. China’s early failures were quickly remedied. They enacted a massively costly economic shutdown early, and bought the west weeks or months. What did we do with that bought time? We wasted it by denying the threat, failing to stockpile, and ultimately doing the exact same thing China did (trying to suppress news of it from the top). At least in the US a select few Republicans were able to profit off this, so I guess they can thank China for their generosity. 2) China built two hospitals in a week, and nearly instantaneously shifted a significant portion of their industry to making medical supplies. Thousands of Americans will die because the US President won’t invoke the defense production act. US does adapt, but it does so too slowly to solve the problem.

China has proven themselves massively resilient. Right now, they’re worried about reimporting cases from Europe and have covid largely under control. It would have been better to not get out of hand in the first place, but they’re the only country that’s demonstrated an ability to work themselves back out of the crisis once it’s unfolded.

Already, colleagues in China are returning to work, and I’ll be out of the office likely until May. China gave us weeks if not months of warning that we ignored, so it’s a little frustrating to see Americans and Europeans finger point when ultimately we’re responsible for our own shit.

If you look at China’s trajectory over the past ~15 years, it is obvious that the 21st century is theirs for the taking, as the 20th was for the US.

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

#452

Post by jachee »

tibbydudeza wrote: post #255
sciencewolf wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is huge. It may be a months of jobless claims compacted into a week.

Also the knockon effect on landlords ... many bossiness want some sort of rental relief or those with limited cash flow are saying they are not going to pay.

Good. Screw the landlords. Let them liquidate and bring the market back down to earth a bit.

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

#453

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

duxup wrote: post #48
gonzo41 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Australia, they closed all the 'non-essential' industries. Which turns out to be about 30% of the workforce. I keep thinking that big shift will be when people come out of this they won't allow themselves to be 'non-essential' ever again. They won't take back those jobs, they'll push for agreements that guarantee a safety net.

I wonder how many people feel they have the option to not take back a job? I have such options, exercised them a few years ago when I was 'done' with a particular industry and I wanted to change (networking to web dev, I'm so much happier with my work now), but my ability to do so was largely because the job I had done was a pretty good job pay wise (so I could save) / I received a severance, etc. The jobs that are g…

> I wonder how many people feel they have the option to not take back a job?

This is exactly why social safety nets are limited in the US. A social safety net drives up wages. Workers no longer rely upon a job to the degree they did before.

So it raises wages and raises taxes, which raise cost for everyone else. It forces managers to actually pay a living wage and take care of employees, which hurts them because they can't treat people like shit to get good numbers to show their managers.

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

#454

Post by chipperyman573 »

arrosenberg wrote: post #439
malandrew wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not Democrats as a whole. Nancy Pelosi and one or two other congress people in particular. As I understand it from various sources spanning the political spectrum, both the Republicans and Democrats that were in Washington DC had productive bipartisan talks over the weekend and had largely hashed out a bill that both sides agreed on. Then Nancy Pelosi flew back from California and injected several additional things i…

I think it's weird to point at Nancy Pelosi given the current state of politics. McConnell and the republicans denounce any Democratic bill that is passed as partisan, so why would this be any different? And you feel that Steve Mnuchin and his $500B corporate bailout slush fund meet the criteria laid out for crisis spending? Give me a break. The Democrats are trying to include things like vote-by-mail, since this cri…

>I think it's weird to point at Nancy Pelosi given the current state of politics. McConnell and the republicans denounce any Democratic bill that is passed as partisan, so why would this be any different?

This is not about the current state of politics. People are dying. Immediate measures to fix this need to be taken to save their lives. This is not the time for politicians to push their agenda, even they believe it makes the world a better place.

It makes sense to talk about all the things that you mentioned you liked after this emergency is over, so that we can be better prepared for next time. But right now, the bills should be hyper-focused on what to do now, to deal with the emergency that is happening now, so that we can resolve it now, so people don't die tomorrow.

(FWIW I agree with most of what was included. It's just not the time to discuss it)

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

#455

Post by chaz »

sushisource wrote: post #394
_ea1k wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that is small-think. The technical solution is only part of the problem and scaling up all systems to meet the .1% case seldom makes sense. They were smart to save 5-10%.

Eh.... On the flip side, processing and storing some simple text forms should be able to handle 1000s of simultaneous users on one box. So, probably like most software of this nature, the reason it's not scaling is simply because the people who made it probably weren't the greatest engineers on the block.

These are the same kinds of assumptions that lead engineers to think they can build a [any product] clone in a weekend. It's unlikely that the problem or constraints are nearly as simple as one may think.

Consider: single auth across all the state's services, external APIs, identity verification, address verification, employer ID verification, federal/military ID verification, income/tax verification, phone verification, bank account information, translation into multiple languages, accessibility features, etc. Also, there's probably a lot of legacy infrastructure and process.

Also, if "ability to burst to 10x normal filings per week that might happen once every 40 years" wasn't in the spec, I think they were right not to engineer for it.

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

#456

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

commandlinefan wrote: post #333
toomuchtodo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They won't take back those jobs, they'll push for agreements that guarantee a safety net. This event forcing America to adopt more progressive policies after experiencing suffering without them wouldn’t be a bad thing. Sometimes things must get worse for them to get better.

> wouldn’t be a bad thing. Well, unless we libertarians were right all along and these progressive policies are unmaintainable over a longer period of time. At this point, I think we're about to find out one way or another.

I think we're going to find that libertarian leaning countries fared far worse in this pandemic than authoritarian ones.

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

#457

Post by nsporillo »

saiya-jin wrote: post #407
viklove wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they don't mind suffering things that are unacceptable for us When the ruling class exploits the working class and suppresses their access to information and free speech, that doesn't mean they "don't mind suffering," it means one sector of the Chinese population has cannibalized another sector in order to build wealth for themselves. Much like what is happening in the US with the ultra-wealthy. It's not all rainbo…

Genocide or not (nobody knows what is happening in those camps, so I would not use that word unless we have some solid hard evidence), we talk about consequences of covid on societies. And Chinese one seems to be faring much much better than most others. I just saw how a video of Chinese doctors dressing up for a visit to a covid patient. My doctor wife just stared with open mouth - nothing like that is done here in…

China understands what matters most and that is controlling the narrative. An authoritarian government excels at manipulating the raw data and thus the narrative.

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

#458

Post by matchbok »

malandrew wrote: post #408
yks wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not Democrats as a whole. Nancy Pelosi and one or two other congress people in particular. As I understand it from various sources spanning the political spectrum, both the Republicans and Democrats that were in Washington DC had productive bipartisan talks over the weekend and had largely hashed out a bill that both sides agreed on. Then Nancy Pelosi flew back from California and injected several additional things i…

What were the provisions?

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

#459

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

devmunchies wrote: post #430
chadmeister wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking like you are right about this. Approval ratings are up somehow: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/

>somehow because this is seen as an external threat and not an internal blunder. Similar to 9/11. Countrymen tend to band together and support the leader when faced with a crisis, regardless of the leader.

What is particularly infuriating is this specific leader made it much worse by doing things like closing the pandemic response team a couple years ago and calling it a big Democratic hoax until recently.

TBH, it's very difficult to look at that 538 chart and not come to the conclusion that a large portion of Americans are idiots. And I'm not even talking about whether or not they support Trump, I'm talking about how it is quite clear they are not able to make logical inferences of true cause and effect (e.g. what Trump is possibly responsible for and what he's not), instead they are just like reeds in the wind blowing whichever way their TV sets or friends tell them.

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

#460

Post by Mirioron »

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."

How do you have an economy that's more robust against disasters? The economy is built on work. If people aren't working then there's no economy. The only way around it is production by robots.
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