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US weekly jobless claims jump by 6.6M

cnbc.com

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Re: US weekly jobless claims jump by 6.6M

#81

Post by _curious_ »

daxfohl wrote: post #65
dota_fanatic wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why / how will the virus peak soon? Global population is ~7.8 billion and yet presumably only 10-100s of millions have caught it so far.

I am afraid the big hit will come in the second wave, when we get used to the numbers, get cabin fever, things start opening up and say 0.1% of people still have it, versus the one in a million that had it when things started shutting down. When the contagion is out in 0.1%, and we reopen everything, suddenly 50% of people will have it in a month and that will be unlike anything we've seen yet.

"I am afraid the big hit will come in the second wave" Quite possible, yes, but do not live in fear, friend. This is a great time to eradicate fear and embrace the chaos :)

Re: US weekly jobless claims jump by 6.6M

#82

Post by mercer »

wjossey wrote: post #73
_curious_ wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"there's a good chance things will quickly return to normal - or at least most companies will survive and start rehiring under a new normal." Other than optimism and hope, what is your basis here?

In fairness to the poster, this is the refrain you’d hear from many CNBC hosts all day, political appointees, etc. I’m old enough to remember the same positivity as the financial crisis unfolded, so I try to remind myself that public officials have no incentive to tell the public “the economy is going to be fubar till 2020. Hang on folks.”

In 'fairness' to the poster, if they're relying on CNBC for their perspective, they're idiots unless they're really young and haven't been burned before by the mainstream media's reporting.

Re: US weekly jobless claims jump by 6.6M

#83

Post by mercer »

throwanem wrote: post #70
chasd00 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what's happening is the result of a medical emergency and not the economy. There's no financial reason or economic reason the job losses are so high. It's still there, the demand is still there, we artificially halted the economy and that generated the job loss. It's certainly not an on/off situation but the job demand is still there and we can get back to work.

This concept of an economy as some sort of Platonic ideal, disconnected from the processes of the polity in which it exists, is very odd to me. It seems like having your heart stop and saying it isn't a "real" emergency, because the organs are all still there and ready to get back to work as soon as oxygenated blood starts arriving again. Sure, that's true for a minute or so, maybe two if you're young and healthy. Af…

For those who have completely surrendered to 'the economy', mostly neoliberal/laissez-faire, this is par for the course.

Re: US weekly jobless claims jump by 6.6M

#84

Post by IAmEveryone »

streetcat1 wrote: post #76
throwanem wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unemployment insurance payout per month is usually capped based on what you made at the job you had before you went on it. One assumes that will again be the case once the current crisis is considered to have ended. Unemployment insurance payouts are also time-bound. You don't go on unemployment and stay on it indefinitely; after a few months, barring a rare and hard-to-obtain extension, the benefit ends.

Agree. So I assume that most of the unemployment is in the travel/hospitality/restaurants/retail (etc). Hence, even after the economy is open, it would be hard to get those people back to work until the "enhanced" benefits run out. I.e. I expect to see a lot of restaurants/hotels open but with no employees. Or, they will be employees, but their wages will have to be increased by 50%, which would cause runaway inflati…

The industries you mention are unlikely to be amendable to increased automation. That’s why service jobs have grown over the last decade or so, compared with manufacturing.

And paying supermarket cashiers decent wages isn’t going to create inflation because it doesn’t change the total amount of money in circulation. Productivity will just be redirected from building super yachts to poorer children’s school supplies (cliches for added clarity).

Re: US weekly jobless claims jump by 6.6M

#85

Post by daxorid »

chasd00 wrote: post #59
_curious_ wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"there's a good chance things will quickly return to normal - or at least most companies will survive and start rehiring under a new normal." Other than optimism and hope, what is your basis here?

what's happening is the result of a medical emergency and not the economy. There's no financial reason or economic reason the job losses are so high. It's still there, the demand is still there, we artificially halted the economy and that generated the job loss. It's certainly not an on/off situation but the job demand is still there and we can get back to work.

> the demand is still there

Right. Common belief in 1930-1931, too.

Psychology is malleable, and consumption patterns beyond food and shelter are driven largely by psychology. In the great depression, consumption behavior of an entire generation was permanently changed, no matter how much better the economy got. Those mental scars lasted forever.

What percentage of the population will watch a parent, spouse, best friend, or grandparent slowly asphyxiate to death and develop a lifetime aversion to casual dining, tourism, mall shopping, non-business air travel, fast food, staying in hotels, visiting family for holidays, casino gambling, meeting with potential clients, going to class, etc?

And then what are the second order effects of not needing the suits/ties/dresses, jetliner inventory, commercial real estate, gasoline, cruise ships, university buildings, casinos, etc required for the above activities?

Which of the economic sectors predicated on those activities will "bounce back"? What is the current high-yield debt load associated with these sectors?

Re: US weekly jobless claims jump by 6.6M

#86

Post by nunez »

bearjaws wrote: post #2

Is the number expected to be this high? I thought one of the core ideas of the stimulus was to prevent firing by giving small businesses a "free" loan if they retained their employees? I've been trying to find a good authority on the economics of this stimulus but it seems I am always stuck finding the same "rehashed" news articles.

A lot of SMBs are having issues actually getting the money. One example: Wells Fargo is only authorized to distribute $10B of the money from PPP because of their scandal a few years back. Many SMBs use Wells Fargo for their business checking accounts. This has created a massive delay queue with folks having to reapply for assistance several times to no avail.

Re: US weekly jobless claims jump by 6.6M

#87

Post by mercer »

beisner wrote: post #46
strict9 wrote: post #12

Is the stock market connected to reality anymore? 16 million Americans lost their jobs in three weeks and in that time there's been a substantial rally. This can't just be short covering. What gives?

I think we’ve known for a while that the stock market is not the economy. My two cents: 1) Uncertainty is anathema to markets. At the beginning of the crisis, there was a ton of uncertainty about how the disease would progress, what it’s impact on supply chains would be globally, and how governments would respond. In the last few weeks, the US has gotten a lot more information on how things progress, “flatten the cur…

I agree with your comment, but I'll add that pessimistically, I feel that for reality these 'service roles' might end up having a much larger impact that we expect, and the discrepancy will have untold, unexpected consequences. A crisis like this one might make us realize what truly matters. It also might not, which at this point I'm half-expecting.

Re: US weekly jobless claims jump by 6.6M

#88

Post by _curious_ »

jt2190 wrote: post #17
bearjaws wrote: post #2

Is the number expected to be this high? I thought one of the core ideas of the stimulus was to prevent firing by giving small businesses a "free" loan if they retained their employees? I've been trying to find a good authority on the economics of this stimulus but it seems I am always stuck finding the same "rehashed" news articles.

Yes. This is part of the United State's Main Street Lending Program, called the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The federal government is guaranteeing loans made by private banks. This is taking time to work its way thorough the banks, as they try to understand their long-term legal obligations. In the mean time, some businesses are laying off or furloughing their employees so that their employees can get some mon…

"Presumably, some of the workers will be recalled when once loans are established." So what happens if you are kept or rehired by your company under the PPP - but don't have any actual work to do?

Re: US weekly jobless claims jump by 6.6M

#89

Post by _curious_ »

rixrax wrote: post #33
bearjaws wrote: post #2

Is the number expected to be this high? I thought one of the core ideas of the stimulus was to prevent firing by giving small businesses a "free" loan if they retained their employees? I've been trying to find a good authority on the economics of this stimulus but it seems I am always stuck finding the same "rehashed" news articles.

Assume you are small business. Now try to find where / how / when You will get stimulus money? To cover what? I sure can’t.

It's literally the gov just giving out money so these companies can keep the doors open and lights on under the guise of 'being in business'. The point is more of a psychological one - to create impression that things are going ok (or not as bad as it seems) at scale across the country.

Re: US weekly jobless claims jump by 6.6M

#90

Post by _curious_ »

techntoke wrote: post #27
rrtthu wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the stimulus is ensuring that unemployed people will get enough cash to live by. They increased the allowance by 600USD per week.

That's really not that much. Won't pay for a 1 bedroom apartment in San Francisco, especially after gas and groceries.

Maybe SF is not a tenable place to live anymore for ___%?

Maybe they will be inconvenienced by forced relocation?

Maybe no-one is entitled to continue living today the way they did yesterday?

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