Do you need to vent about things COVID-19?

[Mollymews]

11 hours ago, Tolya Ugajin said:

I'm not even sure what your 3rd paragraph means.

the long of it

 

the US federal minimum wage for fulltime paid work is $7.25 per hour.  The Senate written bill gave $15 per hour. To say that the senators don't know this is a bit of a stretch. They did know

many US senate and house members can't bring themselves to legislate to raise the minimum wage, because of the upset this causes those employers who's profit model is predicated on paying subsistence wages for fulltime work. However when given the opportunity to bypass these employers and their lobbyists, they did so, under the cover of this covid emergency. A federal payment that currently applies for up to 39 weeks

Tolya, you are right that a significant number of people who previously were getting paid less than $600 a week will be reluctant to go back and work for those employers

in a country like the USA, as wealthy as it is, the days of building business profit models on subsistence wages is coming to an end. Which is a good thing for a wealthy country to do

over time wealthy countries like the USA will move to a minimum income model. And those businesses which can't make a profit at this level will fold, and capital will flow to investments in those companies that can make a profit

what will come as a result of this is that a lot of businesses and workers will move to the gig work model. $600 a week (or whichever min. amount) plus gig payments as and when

with this kind of model then a lot of welfare benefit type programmes get wiped out: food stamps, pensions, unemploymemt, sickness, etc. As do things like federal and state minimum wage regulatory structures and so on. Is not just the welfare agencies that will be shuttered, departments like the labor department will be closed also. Things like occupational safety moved to the Health department and all income-related federal payments moved to the IRS/Treasury

why this is possible and likely is that both social liberals and classic liberals can see the benefits of this to the society as a whole, given the increasing automation of work functions

from the classic liberal pov, philosophically this model fits into their view of society. I think that the eventual model will be more shaped along the lines of the negative income tax model proposed by people like Milton Freidman. Not so much Universal Basic Income but more along the lines of Minimum Income

negative income tax is essentially a minimum income model. When a person's income is below say $600 a week then they get topped up each week by the IRS. It is a graduated top up. Not a flat payment regardless of income as proposed in UBI

at $600 any business model predicated on fulltime work is going to struggle to attract people fulltime below offers of about $900 I think. To make the under $900 business work profitably then the business will go to the casual gig-like employment model. Which is beginning to happening already. Just bring staff in to work when needed. Which people will do. Come in and work for reasons other than for the money

because it is pin money, they don't actually need the money to subsist. They can subsist by not working at all. People will come in and work for social, human contact and self-fulfilling reasons. It is this part which fits the philosophical view of social liberals

the push for minimum income is coming from the political Right (classic liberal/libertarian), not from the political Left. The political Left go along with it because of the outcome of the societal social implications, that they, the social liberal Left, see as beneficial

the people who this model upsets the most are mercantilists: For every winner there is a loser. Merchantilism is essentially a constant state of war. War is not a thing that liberals of any persuasion, or libertarians, are interested in

[kali Wylder]

stupid plague.  So darn hard to sell a house and relocate with this going on 😡

[Tolya Ugajin]

3 hours ago, Mollymews said:

the long of it

 

the US federal minimum wage for fulltime paid work is $7.25 per hour.  The Senate written bill gave $15 per hour. To say that the senators don't know this is a bit of a stretch. They did know

many US senate and house members can't bring themselves to legislate to raise the minimum wage, because of the upset this causes those employers who's profit model is predicated on paying subsistence wages for fulltime work. However when given the opportunity to bypass these employers and their lobbyists, they did so, under the cover of this covid emergency. A federal payment that currently applies for up to 39 weeks

Tolya, you are right that a significant number of people who previously were getting paid less than $600 a week will be reluctant to go back and work for those employers

in a country like the USA, as wealthy as it is, the days of building business profit models on subsistence wages is coming to an end. Which is a good thing for a wealthy country to do

over time wealthy countries like the USA will move to a minimum income model. And those businesses which can't make a profit at this level will fold, and capital will flow to investments in those companies that can make a profit

what will come as a result of this is that a lot of businesses and workers will move to the gig work model. $600 a week (or whichever min. amount) plus gig payments as and when

with this kind of model then a lot of welfare benefit type programmes get wiped out: food stamps, pensions, unemploymemt, sickness, etc. As do things like federal and state minimum wage regulatory structures and so on. Is not just the welfare agencies that will be shuttered, departments like the labor department will be closed also. Things like occupational safety moved to the Health department and all income-related federal payments moved to the IRS/Treasury

why this is possible and likely is that both social liberals and classic liberals can see the benefits of this to the society as a whole, given the increasing automation of work functions

from the classic liberal pov, philosophically this model fits into their view of society. I think that the eventual model will be more shaped along the lines of the negative income tax model proposed by people like Milton Freidman. Not so much Universal Basic Income but more along the lines of Minimum Income

negative income tax is essentially a minimum income model. When a person's income is below say $600 a week then they get topped up each week by the IRS. It is a graduated top up. Not a flat payment regardless of income as proposed in UBI

at $600 any business model predicated on fulltime work is going to struggle to attract people fulltime below offers of about $900 I think. To make the under $900 business work profitably then the business will go to the casual gig-like employment model. Which is beginning to happening already. Just bring staff in to work when needed. Which people will do. Come in and work for reasons other than for the money

because it is pin money, they don't actually need the money to subsist. They can subsist by not working at all. People will come in and work for social, human contact and self-fulfilling reasons. It is this part which fits the philosophical view of social liberals

the push for minimum income is coming from the political Right (classic liberal/libertarian), not from the political Left. The political Left go along with it because of the outcome of the societal social implications, that they, the social liberal Left, see as beneficial

the people who this model upsets the most are mercantilists: For every winner there is a loser. Merchantilism is essentially a constant state of war. War is not a thing that liberals of any persuasion, or libertarians, are interested i

Actually, most Senators didn't realize that the additional unemployment benefits would result in many people making more on unemployment than working - depending on the state, the "break even" point is roughly $50-$55K (most states cap benefit in the low-$400's per week, add in $600/wk, multiply by 52 weeks/yr, that's what you get) - which works out to $25/hr. It's hardly unbelievable that most Senators were unaware of this (remember the whole "we have to pass the bill to see what's in it" from a few years ago?).  This particular concern was raised just a few days before the vote, by one particular Senator, who almost got the billed scuttled by the GOP controlled Senate because of it, but McConnell made a political decision and bullied his caucus into line to pass it.  With politicians who, on camera, express concerns that Guam will tip over, it hardly beggars the imagination that many do not read all the details of a bill before they vote.

We can argue all day about what the minimum wage should be (my personal feeling is it should not exist, which is good enough for such "democratic socialist" paradises as Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, among others), but you and many others ignore the simple fact that as minimum wage increases, jobs are lost.  McDonald's, for instance, now employs less than half the people it did in 2012 - with significantly more restaurants.  Why?  Some of our most populous states mandated $15/hr minimum wages, and jobs were quickly automated away.  Look at any other similar restaurant chain (or, frankly, any low-wage business) and you'll see the same.  Heck, for that matter compare an auto plant today - heavily roboticized - to one of 30 years ago.  When the cost of labor rises, the investment of capital to replace labor through automation becomes more attractive, and jobs are lost.

As far as negative income taxes, approximately 20% of US "taxpayers" currently "pay" negative effective rates on federal income taxes.  44% pay no net federal income taxes.  As far as a push for it coming from "the political right" - perhaps you can provide a quote of someone on the right?  A quote more current than a reference to Milton Friedman, who has been dead for 14 years?  Because I have to say I've never heard a single person on the right treat the basic income models (whether via direct payment or negative taxation) with anything but disdain.  Friedman pushing for tax credits for the poor during the Reagan administration hardly qualifies as a "push from the political right".  And we have that many (1 in 5) with negative taxation AND have 83 federal welfare programs that cost over $1T annually (and that excludes Medicare and Social Security, which run another $1.5T), so I'm at a loss at how it's expected that those programs will be shuttered due to a negative taxation scheme.  As a former president once said, the closest thing to immortality is a government program.  Heck, the Rural Electrification Administration is still around 85 years later, and you'd be hard pressed to find a rural home today without access to electricity.  Yes, we do see an ever-expanding list of tax credits and tax deductions that preferentially favor lower-income people, but that has more to do with making the tax rate cuts at the higher end more politically palatable than anything else.  Those tax rate cuts come and go based on who controls Congress, but the credits are pretty much eternal.

Finally, I'm baffled why you think those now making more on unemployment than they did working will be "reluctant to go back to those employers".  Will they suddenly have skills that command higher wages?  No.  Will there suddenly be more higher paying jobs?  Unlikely.  No, when the benefits are cut off (either due to them expiring or because they are recalled and so they are no longer eligible) it seems far more probable that they will go back to their old jobs, or comparable jobs they have the skills for, and which pay a comparable wage, because the alternative is to have no paycheck.

[Qie Niangao]

Intended or not, dumping a lot of money at the coronavirus-unemployed (and -employed) is pretty crucial to any hope of recovery. Probably a mistake to have any of it contingent on employment status, prior wages, or anything: just helicopter-drop as much money into the demand side of the economy as we can possibly borrow from the supply side.

This is not going to be a quick, pretty recovery. Maybe it would be nicer if some details were done differently, but honestly: they need to simply move credit around any way they can to try to re-kindle this thing. They're even talking about negative interest rates -- a desperately disruptive measure that has never had much benefit anywhere it's been tried -- so yeah, the central bankers know this is not going to be fun again any time soon, and even before the virus they already used most every monetary tool invented.

[Mollymews]

5 hours ago, Tolya Ugajin said:

 A quote more current than a reference to Milton Friedman, who has been dead for 14 years?

negative income tax was popularised in Milton Freidman's book "Capitalism and Freedom" circa 1962. Friedman's thought was how to alleviate poverty in a society predicated on a competitive capitalist market which he acknowleged in the book, produces winners and losers

an explanation of this can be found in lots of articles from respectable institutions. Like this one here from MIT

https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/negative-income-tax-explained

[Mollymews]

5 hours ago, Tolya Ugajin said:

Finally, I'm baffled why you think those now making more on unemployment than they did working will be "reluctant to go back to those employers".  Will they suddenly have skills that command higher wages?  No.  Will there suddenly be more higher paying jobs?  Unlikely.  No, when the benefits are cut off (either due to them expiring or because they are recalled and so they are no longer eligible) it seems far more probable that they will go back to their old jobs, or comparable jobs they have the skills for, and which pay a comparable wage, because the alternative is to have no paycheck.

but will they be cut off ?  Should the Democratic Party take the White House and the Senate then they won't be. Not with 30+ million people unemployed

about automation

it happens when there is insufficient labour to do the job to the quality standard, or when it is cheaper (as you say) to automate than it is to pay labour.  Tractors and diggers rather than people with shovels and wheelbarrows.  Combine harvesters rather than people with scythes. Self-checkout terminals in supermarkets.  ATMs rather than bank store fronts. etc

this is not going to change. More and more work functions are going to be automated

the whole point of capital enterprises is to make a profit. It is not a charity, business is not the business of providing work. I accept this, and I find it surprising  whenever a person who professes to be a capitalist business person thinks that by paying subsistence wages, because it is more profitable for them to do so, are providing a benefit to society

[Ceka Cianci]

Well, Went back to work for a week and they told us not to come in next week and they will keep us informed from week to week..

just when we got back into the swing of things.. hehehehe

[BeautifulXu]

so, have you been out recently? seen a few people with jackets and coats off? a few kids playing where parent don't see them? some people eating fruit spitting out seeds? few people put masks on small children or little kids are taking them off.some ladies starting to carry pets around again.

the days are cool but will it get warmer in the evenings? will people want to come out on those hot days and nights? will there be a new drug so we don't feel the heat?

will you take it?

[Dhyaanee]

8 hours ago, Tolya Ugajin said:

12 hours ago, Mollymews said:

the people who this model upsets the most are mercantilists: For every winner there is a loser. Merchantilism is essentially a constant state of war.

 

Finally, I'm baffled

Need more virus-resistant slaves!!!

[BeautifulXu]

Four people in short jackets.five. six . more virus boys hiding out. two guys walking and talking. a guy in a red short jacket. guy in a short jacket. a guy with a big shopping cart. purples out  today. jacket. Five jackets. guy with a jacket but also a face mask.guy in a short leather jacket man  carrying bag of food.  two men, four man wearing a summer hat. mam with orange back  pack.six people carrying bags. with bags. bus on 41st rd.  four men walking. two guys  carrying bag of food.lady wearing sneakers.

not many birds out today.

[LittleMe Jewell]

2 hours ago, BeautifulXu said:

so, have you been out recently? seen a few people with jackets and coats off? a few kids playing where parent don't see them? some people eating fruit spitting out seeds? few people put masks on small children or little kids are taking them off.some ladies starting to carry pets around again.

Nobody around here wears a mask when they are just out in their own yard - or even when taking a walk around the neighborhood.  As long as they stay away from other folks, it isn't a problem.

[Tolya Ugajin]

6 hours ago, Mollymews said:

but will they be cut off ?  Should the Democratic Party take the White House and the Senate then they won't be. Not with 30+ million people unemployed

about automation

it happens when there is insufficient labour to do the job to the quality standard, or when it is cheaper (as you say) to automate than it is to pay labour.  Tractors and diggers rather than people with shovels and wheelbarrows.  Combine harvesters rather than people with scythes. Self-checkout terminals in supermarkets.  ATMs rather than bank store fronts. etc

this is not going to change. More and more work functions are going to be automated

the whole point of capital enterprises is to make a profit. It is not a charity, business is not the business of providing work. I accept this, and I find it surprising  whenever a person who professes to be a capitalist business person thinks that by paying subsistence wages, because it is more profitable for them to do so, are providing a benefit to society

At the moment, most of those jobs are just waiting for the governors to stop the self-inflicted madness and allow the businesses to reopen. Restaurants can bring back wait staff, "nonessential" retailers can bring back their people, factories can reopen, etc.  The longer it drags on, the more small businesses will be destroyed, and the more time it will take for the damage to heal.  Perhaps now that the CDC has suddenly realized surface transmission is not a significant risk and that 500 doctors have signed a letter that the lockdowns are likely to cause more health problems than the virus, we can get back to letting the facts determine policy, rather than a hysterical media with its own agenda.

[Tolya Ugajin]

6 hours ago, Mollymews said:

negative income tax was popularised in Milton Freidman's book "Capitalism and Freedom" circa 1962. Friedman's thought was how to alleviate poverty in a society predicated on a competitive capitalist market which he acknowleged in the book, produces winners and losers

an explanation of this can be found in lots of articles from respectable institutions. Like this one here from MIT

https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/negative-income-tax-explained

MIT is a respectable institution, but it is hardly "right wing".  For instance, one of the authors of this essay is the left-leaning Tax Policy Center's Chairman, and a brief review of the other's affiliations and research interests also indicates he is left of center.  Using these two to represent a "push from the right" is a bit like NPR using David Brooks as their "conservative" voice - he's only conservative compared to most people in New York City.

You make it sound like there is something wrong with a competitive capitalist market creating both winners and losers.  It creates more winners than losers (as evidence by the recent trend of people joining the upper class faster than joining the lower class by a 2 to 1 margin), and compared to the very abundant historical evidence (Venezuela, USSR, Iraq, North Korea, Cuba for instance) creates a lot more winners and a lot less losers than the alternatives.  It sucks to lose, but not nearly as much as knowing you can never win.

 

[Dhyaanee]

18 minutes ago, Tolya Ugajin said:

500 doctors have signed a letter that the lockdowns are likely to cause more health problems than the virus

Fox News uploaded the letter for us:

https://www.scribd.com/document/462319362/A-Doctor-a-Day-Letter-Signed

[Silent Mistwalker]

Fox News. LOL!

[LittleMe Jewell]

39 minutes ago, Dhyaanee said:

Fox News uploaded the letter for us:

https://www.scribd.com/document/462319362/A-Doctor-a-Day-Letter-Signed

 

13 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Fox News. LOL!

 

Well, Fox News simply published it and uploaded it, but the letter does exist. 

The thing to note though, at least according to a couple of other websites, is that all 500 of the letter signers are also all Trump backers - so not really impartial there.

 

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

2 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

 

 

Well, Fox News simply published it and uploaded it, but the letter does exist. 

The thing to note though, at least according to a couple of other websites, is that all 500 of the letter signers are also all Trump backers - so not really impartial there.

 

I'm guessing sentence number two is the reason sentence number one happened. 

 

[Lyssa Greymoon]

Quote

Thousands of physicians in all specialties and from all States would like to express our gratitude for your leadership.

So it's a joke letter.

[Dhyaanee]

1 hour ago, Tolya Ugajin said:

You make it sound like there is something wrong with a competitive capitalist market creating both winners and losers.

Capitalism is inherently exploitative, unsustainable, creates economic inequality, anti-democratic, leads to an erosion of human rights, and it incentivizes imperialist expansion and war. Other than that it's just dandy!

If there is no need to have a loser (someone who dies, starves, lives in squalor), then why have one?

[Tolya Ugajin]

1 hour ago, Dhyaanee said:

Fox News uploaded the letter for us:

https://www.scribd.com/document/462319362/A-Doctor-a-Day-Letter-Signed

CNN let us know that the lockdowns could result in 1.5 million more dying of TB.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/06/health/tuberculosis-deaths-lockdown-scli-intl/index.html

and that more people may die of hunger as a result than of the disease itself

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-n-warns-hunger-pandemic-amid-threats-coronavirus-economic-downturn-n1189326

and that 75,000 more are at risk due of suicide and overdoes due to lockdown-related strss.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/08/health/coronavirus-deaths-of-despair/index.html

 

[Tolya Ugajin]

16 minutes ago, Dhyaanee said:

Capitalism is inherently exploitative, unsustainable, creates economic inequality, anti-democratic, leads to an erosion of human rights, and it incentivizes imperialist expansion and war. Other than that it's just dandy!

If there is no need to have a loser (someone who dies, starves, lives in squalor), then why have one?

and yet capitalism has lifted more people out of extreme poverty in the last 20 years than all the global social programs combined, while socialism has proven time and again to lead to starvation and tyranny the loss of rights and no socialist country in history has ever been a democracy.  But, hey, you keep wrapping yourself in comfortable lies, while those who understand history know that in the 20th century the countries with capitalistic economies largely gave up their "imperialist expansion", while the National Socialists in Germany started a rather large war as it embarked on rapid imperialist expansion, the United Soviet Socialist Republic took over Eastern Europe and fomented war throughout Latin America and Asia, and currently China, which at least has the honesty to call its ruling (and sole) party Communist uses imperialistic expansion (via economic means mostly) like nobody's business in Africa while bullying around its Asian neighbors.  But, hey, at least they all have strict gun control and socialized medicine.

[Qie Niangao]

7 minutes ago, Dhyaanee said:

If there is no need to have a loser (someone who dies, starves, lives in squalor), then why have one?

That only applies to small businesses. Any time capitalism risks letting a small business become a "loser" -- such squealing you'd think some unnatural act was being perpetrated on the free market.

Then, from the letter:

Quote

Thousands of physicians...

How many signatures again? Five hundred? Typical.

One thing about hyping lockdown-triggered mental illness is that it's a powerfully self-fulfilling prophecy: the more it's promoted as "widespread" the more widespread it becomes, as the expectation of distress spreads among the vulnerable. There's plenty of reason to feel distress, too, but it's a choice to encourage psychological misery as the victimhood of patriots.

Worse, though, is the fanciful "self inflicted" notion that the lockdown, not the virus, caused the economic disruption. If governments (and I definitely include Canada here) hadn't fiddle-fluffed around, stalling for weeks before finally enacting lockdowns, the whole disruption could have been over in a month or so.* Instead, we let the virus spread like wildfire in the cities, extending the duration of the lockdowns and making it many times more difficult to unwind the economic disaster we face now. And it is a disaster. How long before automobile production returns to pre-COVID levels? Detroit is predicting end of 2022 -- and that's if everything goes perfectly and a vaccine is widely available by end of this year. So yeah, hurry and get those barbershops and tattoo parlors and coffeeshops open again because that'll turn everything right around, you betcha.

______________
* and that's allowing for WHO and governments (other than Taiwan) to be deluded by the early suppression of information from China, despite having their own intelligence showing epidemic spread was already underway.

[Theresa Tennyson]

2 hours ago, Tolya Ugajin said:

At the moment, most of those jobs are just waiting for the governors to stop the self-inflicted madness and allow the businesses to reopen. Restaurants can bring back wait staff, "nonessential" retailers can bring back their people, factories can reopen, etc.  The longer it drags on, the more small businesses will be destroyed, and the more time it will take for the damage to heal.  Perhaps now that the CDC has suddenly realized surface transmission is not a significant risk and that 500 doctors have signed a letter that the lockdowns are likely to cause more health problems than the virus, we can get back to letting the facts determine policy, rather than a hysterical media with its own agenda.

But will those jobs still be around in a few months - and would they be around now even if the United States never shut down at all? Let's think about this...

It's important to remember that the Greatest Economy in History we were enjoying before the pandemic was based on consumers, business and government all being up to their gonads in debt in order to support their daily operations.

Let's take the red pill (which is actually a cinnamon Tic-Tac) and decide that Covid-19 was/is completely overrated and that not shutting down wouldn't have caused any problems worse than they are now. The problem is that Europe and Asia still would have shut down. Travel/leisure and other businesses relying on overseas trade still would have taken a major hit, and that would have started bleeding some jobs. Businesses don't have a lot of margin. An airplane not stuffed like a sardine can is probably losing money on every trip.

Now think about the fact that many other jobs are in retail. The red pill's magic powers don't extend to making Sears/K-mart anything better than a shambling zombie of a business, with Macys and J.C. Penney not being a whole lot better. A lot of malls were in dire straits even during the "boom time." Any sort of economic downturn would have been the death blow for a lot of bricks-and-mortar retailers, and there go more jobs. Commercial landlords are in the frying pan now too.

With more and more people losing jobs, people are suddenly going to think "Gee, maybe I shouldn't invest in a birthday cake for my dog after all," so the Dog Birthday Cake Lady* goes out of business. And so on, and so on, and so on...

I'm not saying that all of the decisions on closing down parts of the economy were the best ones possible - I have no way of knowing that. However,  I think it takes a sort of willful blindness to think that all of the problems we're facing would have vanished if we hadn't.

_____________

*Actual real-life business that I saw mentioned in an article.

Edited May 21, 2020 by Theresa Tennyson

[Silent Mistwalker]

4 hours ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

 

 

Well, Fox News simply published it and uploaded it, but the letter does exist. 

The thing to note though, at least according to a couple of other websites, is that all 500 of the letter signers are also all Trump backers - so not really impartial there.

 

There is a reason many people call it Faux News. You just gave one example.

[Modulated]

2 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

There is a reason many people call it Faux News. You just gave one example.

All television and cable news is faux news, they are 'news' outlets owned by giant entertainment companies. Think about that a minute.