COVID-19/Coronavirus thread

[bmags]

13 minutes ago, Soxbadger said:

I believe there may be a way for you to get the money you deserve based on 2020 income. I will try and post it here when I have it.

Most likely the money won't be available until after you file 2020 return.

This is what it looks like in the bill, they are using 2019 data to get checks out now, but you can get the rebate in your 2020 filing.

[bmags]

13 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

All right I'll have at you.

First point - back in the beforeforetimes, I once had a debate here over the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. A pair of posters here who I will not call out by name said that adding so much money to the debt in that bailout would trigger widespread inflation and that would in the end damage the economy. I countered with several points - that the hole blown in the economy was so large that $800 billion wouldn't fill it, that even if it did fill it the Federal Reserve has plenty of power available to fight inflation if it were to occur, and that the risks of it being too small were far larger than the risks of it being too big.

What happened? The ARRA stopped the bleeding of jobs in 2009, but was not big enough to dig out of the hole. Instead, it took the country nearly a decade to return to anything close to full unemployment and the feared inflation was so under control that the Federal Reserve actually can't get the inflation rate high enough. 

In other words, in any case like this of economic crisis, it is always better for your bailout to be too big than too small. If your bailout is too small, your country will take years, perhaps decades to return to full employment - for the US this will cost trillions of dollars in economic activity. If your bailout is too big, your economy grows rapidly, you return to full employment rapidly, and the Central Bank has to raise interest rates to slow growth - with millions more people employed and jobs getting better. Furthermore, if the Central Bank has to raise rates, it gets the rates above the limit of rates having to stay above zero - this would give the Central Bank more power to respond to the next crisis. There are limits of course - a $50 trillion bailout would produce other problems, but if the right amount is $2 trillion, you are better off being at $3 trillion than $1 trillion.

Many of those I can't comment on but I'm going to focus on a few. Unemployment - the extra benefit could be larger and it could be made retroactive to August when the last bonus ended. That will put money into the hands of people who were unemployed over that time. 

Obviously I also oppose the means testing of the checks for reasons people have described here. I think a larger number would be nice, but the unemployment benefits are more important.

I can comment readily on higher education having been in that field. In the US, Higher Education is roughly a $600 billion industry per year, and it's receiving about $20 billion, so 3.5% of its budget. With just the costs of PPP and new computing supplies alone, many schools blew well past that. Especially if the economy remains weak for the next several years where people are going to want to go to schools to develop new skills, having universities cutting programs to save money will be an issue. Some universities can borrow against endowments, but most schools do not have large ones. I think if that were twice as large, it would still fail to offset many of the costs in that industry this year.

The PPP at $325 billion should be larger. THis is the 3rd installment on the PPP I believe, and each time it is drained in only a couple of months - meaning the demand is far larger than $325 billion. Some of that is of course Jared Kushner and other very big businesses needing to take his piece off the top, but that program should have been far larger.

I think it's been noted above that the hospitality (restaurant and bar) industry hasn't gotten anything, even though they get some PPP that is an industry that should have received significant targeted support and it does not.

Finally - aid to state and local governments. This is not in the bill because Republicans constantly oppose it, and in reality it should be a huge slice. Much of that goes to police, fire, teachers, and construction, this year's sales tax numbers will be in the toilet with so many businesses unable to open, so whether it's a small town in texas or los angeles, everyone's in trouble. Although this does effectively "Defund police" because they will get some cuts, we saw the end result of this refusal in 2010 - slow private sector job growth, but overall job growth is stalled because public sector jobs spent years being cut. This will be a drag on employment nationwide for years.

I am not well calibrated on many of the other industries, but even without them I think I've basically just doubled the size of the bill.

I think this is all good though I'd note the grants to K-12 and transportation are state and local aid.

The PPP stuff I am less worried about just because it offers the best feedback. It literally drains, and when its out, there is a decent lobby there, and we've already seen it extended as an isolated bill. 

I've used ARRA as a comparison for how much closer to right-sizing CARES was, and I think this is small. But I don't think it's as off as you, mainly because the spending vs. savings, corporate earnings and tax revenue coming in better than expected. It certainly requires some optimism with this vaccine, but I think its reasonable to expect a surge of consumer spending once they are freer to move for all of that savings. I do not recall anything similar in late 08s, where among other things the huge decline in home prices led even healthy households to be more conservative as their wealth had taken a huge hit.

I really wanted UE to be higher, I did not prioritize nearly as much in what I hoped to see. 

But, the save our stages/healthcare billing/green energy spending were things I did not expect.

Most of all though, this has to pass, I do not want to see the unemployment lapse or funding issues on vaccine rollout to delay things. Delay is something that will really have adverse affects on employment in 2021.

[Balta1701]

30 minutes ago, bmags said:

I think this is all good though I'd note the grants to K-12 and transportation are state and local aid.

The PPP stuff I am less worried about just because it offers the best feedback. It literally drains, and when its out, there is a decent lobby there, and we've already seen it extended as an isolated bill. 

I've used ARRA as a comparison for how much closer to right-sizing CARES was, and I think this is small. But I don't think it's as off as you, mainly because the spending vs. savings, corporate earnings and tax revenue coming in better than expected. It certainly requires some optimism with this vaccine, but I think its reasonable to expect a surge of consumer spending once they are freer to move for all of that savings. I do not recall anything similar in late 08s, where among other things the huge decline in home prices led even healthy households to be more conservative as their wealth had taken a huge hit.

I really wanted UE to be higher, I did not prioritize nearly as much in what I hoped to see. 

But, the save our stages/healthcare billing/green energy spending were things I did not expect.

Most of all though, this has to pass, I do not want to see the unemployment lapse or funding issues on vaccine rollout to delay things. Delay is something that will really have adverse affects on employment in 2021.

Last points - K-12 schools have had to spend tens of billions of dollars on PPE, testing, new computer facilities, contracts with Zoom, new curriculum materials, and on and on and on. That is substantially covered by the $50 billion you note, but that money is fundamentally different from the "aid to state and local governments". THat is (insert your city here) now has a huge drop in sales tax revenue because every bar and restaurant has had their income slashed and the tourism industries, hotel taxes, revenue from parking, and so on have plummeted. That's a hole that is hundreds of billions of dollars so far, and will keep growing the longer this goes on. 

I understand the general concept of your prediction of an increase in spending due to the increased savings rate, but at the same time - 800,000 more people filed for unemployment this week. These numbers are enormous, meaning lots of people have been cycling in and out of jobs. Even if the vaccines were rolled out rapidly and this cleaned up, between that and the long stretch of state and local government job losses we're about to see, there's a lot of forces that are pushing the other way.

[Texsox]

11 hours ago, Dick Allen said:

Just like with everything else, it will help the fancier restaurants most. Not many business lunches and dinners that need to be written off happen at the local diner.

You might be surprised. I had a lot of customers who had a regular neighborhood place they liked for lunch. 

[Middle Buffalo]

39 minutes ago, Texsox said:

You might be surprised. I had a lot of customers who had a regular neighborhood place they liked for lunch. 

Teacher, businessman, hunter, scout leader, chess master....What doesn’t Tex do?

[Texsox]

9 hours ago, Middle Buffalo said:

Teacher, businessman, hunter, scout leader, chess master....What doesn’t Tex do?

Teaching is my second career. I was in electronic part sales for 20 years while living in Chicago. Did you know Chicago was the epicenter of video games? Pac Man,  Asteroids,  Frogger were all build in the area. Then after AT&T was dissolved, telephony was huge. GE, Tellcom, and others manufactured all sorts of telephone backbone stuff.  US Robotics and Incomm Data sold a crap load of modems in the early days of the internet. 

I love learning things and trying stuff. Boredom is my kryptonite. 

The only consistent long term things have been reading and golf. 

[Big Hurtin]

Gonna end up being zero

[southsider2k5]

10 hours ago, Middle Buffalo said:

Teacher, businessman, hunter, scout leader, chess master....What doesn’t Tex do?

You say this like its a bad thing.  I am going on 50 now, and I would hate my life if I only stuck to one career or hobby.

[southsider2k5]

1 minute ago, Big Hurtin said:

Gonna end up being zero

At the VERY worst, Biden will sign whatever comes in front of him in a month.  The GOP has to realize that this could mean the Dems might get to write the bill with both Dem Senators in GA and lock them out of the process completely.

[Big Hurtin]

5 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

At the VERY worst, Biden will sign whatever comes in front of him in a month.  The GOP has to realize that this could mean the Dems might get to write the bill with both Dem Senators in GA and lock them out of the process completely.

True, but that's a long time away for people who need it yesterday.

[NWINFan]

1 hour ago, Big Hurtin said:

True, but that's a long time away for people who need it yesterday.

This is right, but Trump is too busy feeling sorry for himself and pardoning mass murderers. Shows where his priorities are.

[southsider2k5]

1 hour ago, Big Hurtin said:

True, but that's a long time away for people who need it yesterday.

I mean it isn't like Trump cared about these people in the first place.

[Texsox]

12 hours ago, Middle Buffalo said:

Teacher, businessman, hunter, scout leader, chess master....What doesn’t Tex do?

If you really want to hear about someone who did everything,  pro baseball player,  writer,  musician, model, dance instructor, entrepreneur, convict, ex pat, prisoner, and more it's all in my book about Mack Thomas

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0997897902/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fabc_3pm5FbPNRF010

*I will receive royalties if you purchase from Amazon lol 

 

[StrangeSox]

 

 

 

 

Lol

 

[Middle Buffalo]

4 hours ago, southsider2k5 said:

You say this like its a bad thing.  I am going on 50 now, and I would hate my life if I only stuck to one career or hobby.

No, wasn’t saying it was a bad thing. Said in admiration. 

[Stinky Stanky]

On 12/23/2020 at 1:09 PM, bmags said:

This is what it looks like in the bill, they are using 2019 data to get checks out now, but you can get the rebate in your 2020 filing.

Better yet, this was also true of the original stimulus check.  If your last stimulus check was reduced because of excessive income in 2019, it will be refigured based on your 2020 income, once your 2020 return is filed, and if that results in a higher amount you will get the difference.  As far as I know, this will be done automatically.

[Balta1701]

He got vaccinated last week.

 

[Balta1701]

 

[The Beast]

Well folks, he was bluffing and signed it:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-nw-second-stimulus-check-updates-20201227-lcuwnmemifapxht4f7jcltmjmi-story.html

[Stinky Stanky]

1 hour ago, The Beast said:

Well folks, he was bluffing and signed it:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-nw-second-stimulus-check-updates-20201227-lcuwnmemifapxht4f7jcltmjmi-story.html

Since his man Mnuchin was on the scene for all the negotiations that led to the bill he signed, his too late push for $2000 checks was disingenuous at best.  It's not as if he wasn't being informed regularly about what led to the bill.  So the bluff was showboating and nothing else.

[Balta1701]

12 minutes ago, Stinky Stanky said:

Since his man Mnuchin was on the scene for all the negotiations that led to the bill he signed, his too late push for $2000 checks was disingenuous at best.  It's not as if he wasn't being informed regularly about what led to the bill.  So the bluff was showboating and nothing else.

Well, no, it did cause unemployment insurance to expire for anyone who was using the extended benefits, so they will all have to reapply, creating huge amounts of delays and paperwork for every state and costing most people who are on it a week or two of the coverage. 

[StrangeSox]

 

[The Beast]

12 minutes ago, StrangeSox said:

 

Follow Sweden’s example in the U.S. they said. It will work they said.

[Danny Dravot]

15 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

 

You take a job at a military hospital, you ought to know the stakes. The commander-in-chief can be shredded on the pages of the New York Times, but he's not going to be shredded by the likes of you.

There was a video a while back of a uniformed sailor getting out of her car next to a small Trump-y gathering and screaming "fuck Trump" in their faces. I agree with the sentiment, if not the hysterical foaming-at-the-mouth expression of it, but to say so publicly is a career ender for a military member or DOD civilian and should be.

I never liked Obama but I didn't run my mouth about what an awful president I thought he was.

[Balta1701]

28 minutes ago, Danny Dravot said:

You take a job at a military hospital, you ought to know the stakes. The commander-in-chief can be shredded on the pages of the New York Times, but he's not going to be shredded by the likes of you.

There was a video a while back of a uniformed sailor getting out of her car next to a small Trump-y gathering and screaming "fuck Trump" in their faces. I agree with the sentiment, if not the hysterical foaming-at-the-mouth expression of it, but to say so publicly is a career ender for a military member or DOD civilian and should be.

I never liked Obama but I didn't run my mouth about what an awful president I thought he was.

He was a contract employee who also works at one of the local university teaching hospitals, so he's not a serviceperson.