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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

#501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And mental health too. How many new Alcoholics will this create? How many suicides?

It's interesting that NOW people are concerned with this impact from the economy, yet when people became alcoholics from getting fired when the economy was good, no one seems to care.

It's a matter of size. If you have 1% "falling through the cracks", it's individually tragic but not something that will negatively impact the economy that much. If you have 30% falling, you're going to be in for a rough time.

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

#502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, legitimately, how to we make it so the government does have repercussions? I see a lot of people making jokes about guillotines and nooses, but is there no better way?

I suggest by campaigning to bring logic and critical thinking into early childhood education. Then philosophy, the classics. Science education. Once you have more people who can understand that there are scientific and moral issues with manifest destiny, and religion isn't going to solve global warming, there will be some shifts in the public discourse and public policies.

Having the schools teach RightThink instead of WrongThink tends to be a hard sell to an ideologically diverse nation.

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

#503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And mental health too. How many new Alcoholics will this create? How many suicides?

It's interesting that NOW people are concerned with this impact from the economy, yet when people became alcoholics from getting fired when the economy was good, no one seems to care.

It is about the volumes I guess , millions are filing unemployment claims now , the impact is going to much higher on these issues , lot more people will suffer due to this, so more people have been talking about it .

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

#504

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…

None of those comments really help explain why the bottle necks. If the form has to go into a mainframe well just set up an asynconous Queue

Validation is the problem. If someone thinks they’ve successfully applied, rejecting them asynchronously is often worse than not letting them apply in the first place.

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

#505

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…

I’m not sure about this. China is, rightfully, being blamed for the initial outbreak of the virus and their failure to contain it. I think when the dust settles, we’re going to see a rapid decoupling from China as countries look inward to strengthen their domestic supply chains. I have a hard time seeing China emerging as a winner from this crisis.

If China becomes less dependent on exports to the US, they could dump US treasuries, which could potentially destroy the US economy & the dollar.

They have the US by the balls.

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

#506

And the stock market loves it? I’m so confused.

It may be a temporary bump. I'm still debating pulling some money out of the market for a while. I'd still be buying via my 401(k), so I'm not totally out, but I just feel like the fundamentals will pull the market down for a while. Then again, we will probably, finally, start to see (stag|in)flation soon so having cash may be a bad move.

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

#507
post #17

Semi tangent, about dealing with mass unemployment. I like to think this event changes people's perspective on folks out of work in the US. There's a lot of recrimination, and even self loathing about being poor or out of work in the US. It doesn't seem based in reality and certainly isn't helpful. Perhaps it is time we realize that much like a pandemic things in this world change fast and we need to be able to help…

Saying things like "maybe we need to realize that..." and so on is nice, and important. But unless things change materially it won't do much. People need leniency, but they need it in more than just the disposition of those around them. They need leniency on rent, they need money to live. These are material needs.

Yesterday, a small group of senators threatened to hold up the bill that offers (pitiful, way too little) relief to workers. They did this because they were concerned the government would be giving too much to workers, such that people would begin choosing not to work.

It's (hopefully) clear that this is plainly ridiculous, and evil behavior. I don't bring it up to say those people are horrible - which they are. I bring it up to point out that this is the ideology and the environment we have to contend with.

People need help but our system is intentionally designed not to give it to them.

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

#508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing in the grandparent comment is particularly neoliberal; now, if it stated that neoliberal policy assured (or even made more likely) the kind of economic resilience that it suggests is what matters, that would be different, but as it is it is compatible with the criticism of neoliberalism that is common from the center-left to the far left (though each position in this range also has many more criticisms of neo…

"efficiency" and "innovation" are neoliberal buzzwords. They are the very same buzzwords that were used to justify the cuts to our supplies and offshoring of our supply chains that led in part to this crisis. It is absurd on its face to summarize Germany's ascendancy to "efficiency" and "innovation" when, you know, complicated geopolitics is a thing. It is literally fluffy propaganda.

> "efficiency" and "innovation" are neoliberal buzzwords.

No, efficiency and innovation are real things. Neoliberals tend to think that they are areas that neoliberal policy produces better outcomes on, and in the case of efficiency at least there is a strong theoretical case that this is true in a very narrow range of hyper-idealized conditions.

People who are not neoliberals often agree that efficiency and innovation are important (though perhaps not of as paramount importance as neoliberals tend to portray them), but often disagree with neoliberals as to the optimality of neoliberal policies at producing them outside of the kind of simplified conditions that dominate the first couple weeks of undergraduate economics classes.

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

#509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 - ahea…

My point was if a country wants to be successful and dominate over others it needs to have an economy which is efficient and which innovates that's why USA is currently world's richest and most powerful country. On the other hand China with its massive workforce and efficiency combined with upcoming innovations is about to become world's new number 1 superpower.

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

#510
post #438
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…

> 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. Please don't take this as me being captain hindsight here, but I think that this pandemic has reallllly shown the need for an emergency fund. IMO if you're sole prop or contractor, you owe it to yourself to have a bigger emergency fu…

It is not that people don’t know this and spend all they make. Not all contractors make enough to save for an emergency fund easily. Independent of all of this, every experienced contractor knows that sometimes there will be dull patches and you save for that . However it is not always possible to do so, and you may have saved for 2weeks or 2 months and it may not be enough the economy might limp for 6months or a year .
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