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U.S. Labor Department allows unemployment benefits for coronavirus

reuters.com

51–60 of 96 posts

Re: U.S. Labor Department allows unemployment benefits for coronavirus

#51
post #33

I bailed on a job just before all of this started because we weren't doing any work for 3 months and I got bored. Biggest mistake ever.

You got bored of collecting an easy paycheck? But do you think tech hiring will really slow down? I feel like there is just too much momentum in the area. We are the force multipliers.

Re: U.S. Labor Department allows unemployment benefits for coronavirus

#52

If COVID-19 digs in deep in the US then there is going to be a transformational change in how US citizens think about work, travel, entertainment, security, and the relationship between US citizens and their government. All of these aspects are intertwined: Work: More people will work more time from home and many firms will switch to virtually full time remote with limited physical gathering. This will decrease the c…

I understand everything that you wrote is just speculation starting from the conditional, “If COVID-19 digs in deep in the US then...” but I just don’t follow the logic.

It’s not our first pandemic. It won’t be the last. And I don’t see any reason at all to think why people won’t go back to living their lives at the first possible opportunity.

But what does “dig in deep” even mean? In the vast majority of cases it’s a mild virus with symptoms generally lasting a week.

If anything I think at the end of all this people will be deeply suspicious the next time the WHO declares a pandemic and insists we need to shut down the world economy.

We are not dealing with an exponential function. We are dealing with a logistics function, I.e. an “S” curve.

The predominant factor to coming out the other side of the curve is herd immunity.

IMO, the faster that young and middle age people acquire herd immunity, the safer it is long term for the elderly who are at the highest risk, because it drives R0 below 1 and extinguishes the pandemic.

The flaw with “flatten the curve” is overly simplistic thinking around the severity of cases. The best way to eliminate severe cases, assuming strict containment is impossible or cripplingly costly, is to gain herd immunity in the low-risk populations.

Re: U.S. Labor Department allows unemployment benefits for coronavirus

#54
post #33

I bailed on a job just before all of this started because we weren't doing any work for 3 months and I got bored. Biggest mistake ever.

You got bored of collecting an easy paycheck? But do you think tech hiring will really slow down? I feel like there is just too much momentum in the area. We are the force multipliers.

Yeah I had just switched to pentesting, was eager to get started. Killed some passion.

Believe me, I'd still be collecting it if I knew this was going to happen.

>But do you think tech hiring will really slow down?

We should be good but these are extraordinary times.

Re: U.S. Labor Department allows unemployment benefits for coronavirus

#55
post #52

If COVID-19 digs in deep in the US then there is going to be a transformational change in how US citizens think about work, travel, entertainment, security, and the relationship between US citizens and their government. All of these aspects are intertwined: Work: More people will work more time from home and many firms will switch to virtually full time remote with limited physical gathering. This will decrease the c…

I understand everything that you wrote is just speculation starting from the conditional, “If COVID-19 digs in deep in the US then...” but I just don’t follow the logic. It’s not our first pandemic. It won’t be the last. And I don’t see any reason at all to think why people won’t go back to living their lives at the first possible opportunity. But what does “dig in deep” even mean? In the vast majority of cases it’s…

[deleted]

Re: U.S. Labor Department allows unemployment benefits for coronavirus

#56
I wonder if people who don't have regular jobs would be able to use these services in any way? As far as I know, self employed people don't qualify for these for example. I'm not an expert, but that's what it looked like last time I checked.

Re: U.S. Labor Department allows unemployment benefits for coronavirus

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically lowering the SS age doesn't cost any money either. The government controls the money supply; they could just print money and hand it out. The real problem is that if they did this it wouldn't actually have any real short-term effect other than making the things seniors want to buy more expensive. Money's a fiction: it's purpose is to incentivize people to produce things that other people want. If you incr…

> Technically lowering the SS age doesn't cost any money either. The government controls the money supply; they could just print money and hand it out. The government doesn’t do this though. That’s why there is confidence in the USD.

The government does, actually: Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution explicitly gives Congress the power "to collect taxes; to coin money and regulate its value; provide for punishment for counterfeiting", among other powers.

It's just that Congress has delegated this to multiple independent organizations within the government. The U.S. Mint makes physical coins and paper money. The U.S. Treasury issues government debt. The IRS collects taxes. The Secret Service prosecutes counterfeiting. The Federal Reserve serves as the lender of last resort to the banking system. The President submits the budget, which must be approved by Congress.

The division between the President, Congress, U.S. Treasury, and Federal Reserve forms a very important check on the tendency of most governments to just print money to cover government services, since different branches of government are responsible for determining how much is spent; where it's spent; where it's collected from, and under what terms it'll be repaid; and how much it's worth. But it's worth remembering that constitutionally, Congress has the power to create all of those agencies, and Congress also has the power to unmake them. I don't necessarily think that doing so is a good idea, but it's possible.

Re: U.S. Labor Department allows unemployment benefits for coronavirus

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically lowering the SS age doesn't cost any money either. The government controls the money supply; they could just print money and hand it out. The real problem is that if they did this it wouldn't actually have any real short-term effect other than making the things seniors want to buy more expensive. Money's a fiction: it's purpose is to incentivize people to produce things that other people want. If you incr…

> Technically lowering the SS age doesn't cost any money either. The government controls the money supply; they could just print money and hand it out. The government doesn’t do this though. That’s why there is confidence in the USD.

> The government doesn’t [print money and hand it out] though.

This is exactly what they're doing every time they drop rates - handing out new money to the financial industry. The main thing one can be confident in regarding The Fed is that they will create enough new money to keep the numbers at the Wall Street Casino ("The Ecomony") going up up up, even attempting to do so when it's blatantly inappropriate. It's seemingly the only button they know how to push.

The belief in USD comes from military dominance, the petrodollar, momentum, and a lack of better immediate options. Nobody was ever fired for buying IBM either, but eventually the world will move on.

Re: U.S. Labor Department allows unemployment benefits for coronavirus

#60

Hopefully all the states implement this as it would help immensely at least in theory. I’d prefer an emergency temporary UBI but bureaucrats gotta bureaucrat.

Though it's obviously a long-shot, Tulsi Gabbard just introduced a UBI COVID-19 relief bill: https://gabbard.house.gov/sites/gabbard.house.gov/files/docu...
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