Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Search PPP Loans by Zip Code

ppploanmap.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 88 posts

Re: Search PPP Loans by Zip Code

#61

Post by mlsu »

chrisbrandow wrote: post #30

I for one remain incredibly grateful that they shoveled money out the door, and imperfectly helped lots of small businesses provide some cash to some employees. If they had sat around worrying about the critics or trying to prevent any possible fraud before sending out the money, everything in our country would have frozen up that much more.

They could have just cut anyone who filed a W2 a check, paid to the same account (or address) as last year's IRS tax refund for that filer. It would have been even easier, more equitable, and certainly less fraudulent than this program. They probably would have seen a bump in late tax filings, too, getting more people onto the tax rolls.

It was extremely disheartening to see the way this program was applied. I can't think of any decent reason why the money had to pass through the hands of the employer first.

Re: Search PPP Loans by Zip Code

#62

Post by georgemcbay »

ok_dad wrote: post #56
Dalewyn wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and the people who really needed the help often got stiffed. Just one anecdata, but we (family business) were "people who really needed the help" and got approved for PPP, both times. You needed to be fairly timely on applying because of the absurd demand, though. We had to file paperwork including our payroll, income/loss sheets and more with our bank (not SBA) who actually did most of the groundwork because any PP…

I thought the free market was important, but you seem to just want handouts. Shouldn’t your business have failed if it wasn’t resilient? Why was your family business more important than any of the families who lost everything during covid? What hypocrites you MAGA folks are!

In my experience the louder someone claims to be for the "free market" the more they are actually aligned with the "privatize the profits, socialize the losses" mindset when you observe what they do rather than what they say.

Re: Search PPP Loans by Zip Code

#63

Post by thephyber »

mattmaroon wrote: post #35
lotsofpulp wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose of running the money through employers via PPP was to ensure the socioeconomic rankings didn’t change, so that employees still needed their employers. Giving everyone more cash with no strings attached would have given them more negotiating power against employers.

Or it was because employees need jobs a lot more than they need $2,500, so if everyone got $2,500 and lost their job, employees would be screwed in like 3 months. Profit may not trickle down like you hope but pain sure does.

More accurately, it was to preserve employment relationships.

Historically, once mass layoffs happen, they are contagious. Once unemployment rates rise, companies plan to cut costs to ride out a recession.

Also, once employees are unemployed for an extended period of time (something like 9+ months), their odds of finding similarly paying work drop permanently.

It was in everybody’s best interest to reduce the employer-employee churn.

Re: Search PPP Loans by Zip Code

#64

Post by thephyber »

jmyeet wrote: post #14

Just remember, it's only ever a moral hazard when the government gives money to poor people. The wealthy will not only never turn down free money from the government, they will lobby for it and demand it.

And use it to drive up prices of stocks and rare artwork.

Re: Search PPP Loans by Zip Code

#65

Post by Dalewyn »

ok_dad wrote: post #56
Dalewyn wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and the people who really needed the help often got stiffed. Just one anecdata, but we (family business) were "people who really needed the help" and got approved for PPP, both times. You needed to be fairly timely on applying because of the absurd demand, though. We had to file paperwork including our payroll, income/loss sheets and more with our bank (not SBA) who actually did most of the groundwork because any PP…

I thought the free market was important, but you seem to just want handouts. Shouldn’t your business have failed if it wasn’t resilient? Why was your family business more important than any of the families who lost everything during covid? What hypocrites you MAGA folks are!

Your premise is flawed because the free market was corrupted by government-ordered shutdowns. PPP is compensation for that. You can't maintain entire payrolls with quite literally next to no revenue without external cash infusions.

In case you weren't aware, PPP stands for Paycheck Protection Program and the monies disbursed by it are only to compensate for payroll expenses during the specified timeframe. Forgiveness also requires resubmission of payroll and other financial documents at time of forgiveness application to prove the PPP money was used for payroll and noone was fired without cause.

PPP does not and could not make up for a fundamentally flawed business model, all it did was compensate for paycheck expenses that could have been impacted by top-down forced shutdowns, particularly since small businesses by their nature usually can't handle wholly unexpected adversities well.

Your overt mischaracterization of PPP is one of many things that made me vote for Trump, by the way. Fake news sensationalism can die in a fire.

Re: Search PPP Loans by Zip Code

#66

Post by kyrra »

Lots of people are blaming Trump for the abuse of those back in 2020. Let's not forget Congress played a role here (where Dems controlled the House). They passed the spending bill here. Meaning they are also responsible here. Congress controls the purse. They set the rules.

Also, let's not forget that businesses were forced shut down and everyone was crying that they were going to lose their business. If the government had spent the time to vet all these loans, there is no way they would have actually gotten the money out the door. There was a known calculus at the time that there would be fraud. But many businesses were in a rough spot and needed money.

Re: Search PPP Loans by Zip Code

#67

Post by p3rls »

63 wrote: post #29
elashri wrote: post #16

$755B was forgiven. I know that there are many benefits for this program but I cannot resist comparing this with the NSF budget. This is equal to about 75.5 years of the current NSF budget (assuming constant budget but unlikely as there is planned deep cuts). If we assume that the budget will increase 5% to adjust for inflation (unlikely too) then that would about 32yrs. Not that I'm comparing in absolute usefulness.…

It's been discussed before but I'll go ahead and say it again. Any administration that was actually serious about cutting spending to benefit the American people would start with cutting unnecessary defense projects and large scale healthcare reform. Those categories take up the vast, vast majority of the budget. But instead, they cut the programs projecting benevolence to the world and protecting us from tuberculosi…

[flagged]

Re: Search PPP Loans by Zip Code

#68

Post by jackstraw14 »

This is the best display of this data that I've seen so far, thanks for sharing OP. Truly wild seeing so many names of people I know raked in cash this way. Makes me start to understand where their seemingly endless money came from sometimes.

Re: Search PPP Loans by Zip Code

#69

Post by [deleted] »

mlsu wrote: post #61
chrisbrandow wrote: post #30

I for one remain incredibly grateful that they shoveled money out the door, and imperfectly helped lots of small businesses provide some cash to some employees. If they had sat around worrying about the critics or trying to prevent any possible fraud before sending out the money, everything in our country would have frozen up that much more.

They could have just cut anyone who filed a W2 a check, paid to the same account (or address) as last year's IRS tax refund for that filer. It would have been even easier, more equitable, and certainly less fraudulent than this program. They probably would have seen a bump in late tax filings, too, getting more people onto the tax rolls. It was extremely disheartening to see the way this program was applied. I can't…

[deleted]

Re: Search PPP Loans by Zip Code

#70

Post by xtiansimon »

niceice wrote: post #47
elashri wrote: post #16

$755B was forgiven. I know that there are many benefits for this program but I cannot resist comparing this with the NSF budget. This is equal to about 75.5 years of the current NSF budget (assuming constant budget but unlikely as there is planned deep cuts). If we assume that the budget will increase 5% to adjust for inflation (unlikely too) then that would about 32yrs. Not that I'm comparing in absolute usefulness.…

Why was it forgiven?

Don’t know about the OPs case, but forgiveness was based on meeting the requirements of the program: 60% of the loan to employees and 40% to approved employer expenses (business overhead such as rent and electricity).

I assisted with the submission of PPP forgiveness for 4 restaurants.

Post reply on HN