@sandyf wrote:

Hello guysmom, yes everyone has their idea of what is safe. But where I live it is not at all safe for me to go out and about my life as it used to be. Statistically I have about a 30% chance of dying if I catch the virus. So I am happy for you that you are able to go about your life. My life has become very truncated. I have not gotten together with friends for 3 months, I take walks in the neighborhood and i grocery shop and take bike rides but most of my life is on the sidelines. I do not consider walks and grocery shopping to be a life at all. You are lucky enough to have someone to share your life with. Many, many seniors live alone and also have an underlying condition so they are not going out like before. I am happy for you that you feel it is safe and maybe where you live it is but for the vast majority of seniors who live in cities there is a large viral load still outside our doors. in my city they have stressed that high risk people should not be going out to places. In many states the viral load is bigger now than at any time during this pandemic. So I hope you will take some precautions and listen to the advice of the health experts. Hopefully if enough people bide by the rules we have now this virus will soon be tamped down but from where I live and read the news it does not seem to be happening.

Frustrating, frightening and 100% truth.
Somebody at my work got sick from his wife (at home). Exactly ZERO of us at work got sick. We wear masks for 10-12 hours a day. It's annoying, irritating and hot, but so worth it. We wear cloth masks, bandanas, etc. Nothing fancy. I save my KN-95's and N-95's for the airplane.

@shoptastic wrote:

As I've mentioned in another thread, you can officially reopen the economy all you want, but no one can "really" reopen unless patrons return and that is up to us. If we don't feel safe, we're not going back out. I think many businesses will find much diminished revenue and will have to lay people off.

To this point, NPR and NYT have been reporting on the effects of the decline in "rich" spending:
[www.npr.org] (June 17)

@ wrote:

The wealthy aren't holding back because they don't have the money. By and large, they have lost fewer jobs and aren't the ones who are worried about making rent. . .

Many of those jobs may not be coming back anytime soon. And because it's not a lack of money that's keeping the rich from spending, the usual tools the government might use to fight a recession are not terribly helpful here.

"From the perspective of people who are not living paycheck to paycheck, the main concern here is really fighting the virus," Hendren said. "Unless we remove the threat of getting sick or getting your family members sick, it's hard to imagine that that spending will recover to the pre-COVID levels."

THIS is a crucial point I've been making. You can open the economy all you want, but those of us who don't have to go out simply won't if we feel health is more important. For wealthy people, they don't want to die to put it crudely.

Interestingly, COVID fatalities affect those over 70 years old the worst, yet those also happen to be largely part of the Boomer generation, which carries the most wealth in the U.S. 2/3 of the U.S. economy is consumption. Of that 2/3, the wealthy account for the biggest share of spending:

@ wrote:

"When the stimulus checks went out, you see that spending by lower-income households went up a lot," said Nathan Hendren, a Harvard economist and co-founder of the Opportunity Insights research team.

However, the wealthy are not matching them. "For higher-income individuals, that spending is still way far off from where it was prior to COVID and it has not recovered as much," Hendren said.

That's potentially crippling because consumer spending is a huge driver of economic activity. In fact, so much of the country's economy depends on shopping by the top income bracket that the wealthiest 25% of Americans account for fully two-thirds of the total decline in spending since January.

If wealthy and older people don't want to spend, you cannot easily revive the economy.

[www.nytimes.com] (June 17)

Immediate impact of the wealthy holding back on spending is a loss of low-wage jobs in their neighborhoods.

A random observation: GOP states are aggressively pushing reopening during a time when cases are rising fastest in their states. They seem to also have lots of people (just my perception and I could be wrong) who don't care about wearing masks.

This probably scares wealthy and older people, whose spending matters most to the economy.

If you want to protect and revive the economy, make it safe for people!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/21/2020 01:31AM by shoptastic.

Trickle down economics? I thought that liberals didn’t believe in that?

Trickle down economics basically refers to tax cuts to major corporations and the very wealthy. The idea is that because they receive these tax cuts companies will expand factories, increase wages, create more products, etc. Instead, often what happens with these tax cuts is that it goes directly in the pockets and bottom line of those companies and very wealthy. As President Trump told his friends at Mar-a-Largo the night after signing one the biggest tax cuts, "You all just got a lot richer." Shoptastic's illustration is not an example of Trickle Down economics. Beyond the point that Shoptastic is making, that illustration also underscores in general the important role consumer spending has on the economy.

@1forum1 wrote:

Trickle down economics basically refers to tax cuts to major corporations and the very wealthy. The idea is that because they receive these tax cuts companies will expand factories, increase wages, create more products, etc. Instead, often what happens with these tax cuts is that it goes directly in the pockets and bottom line of those companies and very wealthy. As President Trump told his friends at Mar-a-Largo the night after signing one the biggest tax cuts, "You all just got a lot richer." Shoptastic's illustration is not an example of Trickle Down economics. Beyond the point that Shoptastic is making, that illustration also underscores in general the important role consumer spending has on the economy.

Yes, true. It is based on the tax cuts given to the rich, but the second part is that the rich will therefore stimulate the economy. That is not happening right now.

@1forum1 wrote:

Trickle down economics basically refers to tax cuts to major corporations and the very wealthy. The idea is that because they receive these tax cuts companies will expand factories, increase wages, create more products, etc. Instead, often what happens with these tax cuts is that it goes directly in the pockets and bottom line of those companies and very wealthy. As President Trump told his friends at Mar-a-Largo the night after signing one the biggest tax cuts, "You all just got a lot richer." Shoptastic's illustration is not an example of Trickle Down economics. Beyond the point that Shoptastic is making, that illustration also underscores in general the important role consumer spending has on the economy.

Right. It's not a vindication of trickle down economics (which is what the Trump corporate and income tax cuts arguably were***), as one could easily argue for trickle up economics instead. If you gave poor people tons of money, they'd spend it and it could reach it's way up to the rich. In fact, M2 velocity (M2V) would increase and that's been argued as one of the best ways to get the economy going, as poor people spend the majority of their money vs. the rich (who have much of it sitting in investments and not circulating in the economy). Don't want to get into an argument about what economic approach is best. My only point was the during this SPECIFIC pandemic, focusing on safety is intertwined with helping our economy. Too often, in the past, I'd heard that we unnecessarily harmed our economy in an effort to try to stop this "fake" virus, etc. etc. Well, that's not true. We'd have had the economy naturally fall into recession anyways from the pandemic. But, more importantly, saving lives and ensuring safety are part of the formula for protecting and reviving the economy. In this specific situation, it's because the wealthy and elderly have the bulk of discretionary income/wealth that contributes an outsized proportion to consumer spending (which is 2/3 of the U.S. economy) and are also amongst the most vulnerable to the virus.

The point was mainly that virus safety goes hand-in-hand with reviving the economy.

***NOTE: His tax cuts also came with record non-recession/non-wartime deficit spending, unlike Obama's administration, for example (which was more fiscally responsible). Not something Trump brags about though.

To bring it back to ms-ing, if I were an MSC, I'd maybe try to work with clients to develop programs that checked for virus-safety protocols. This is important to restoring wealthy/elderly consumer confidence, which accounts for most of U.S. consumer spending.

If their clients don't win their business back, they could go out of business themselves. And what do the wealthy/elderly care about? Safety!

I'd pitch this to the clients as part of a ms program.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/21/2020 11:57AM by shoptastic.

@shoptastic wrote:

I'm under the impression lots and lots of people are soaking up enhanced unemployment benefits right now through the end of July...

Secondly, many PPP recipients may have taken loans just to pay their workers and rent with a built-in escape clause. The rule is that if you don't bring everyone back on, then your loan is a loan and can't be converted to a grant. HOWEVER, this is a huge "loophole" of sorts. If you close down permanently, then you don't owe the loans back either...

Up until now, I've been under the impression that people have still been enjoying their stimulus checks and enhanced unemployment...

There are more than a few impressionable here to note.

1. PPP loans do NOT become grants by default if you close your business. They CAN be forgiveable loans, in whole or in part, and if you borrowed less that $25k you probably didn't have to put down any collateral. But for larger loans you can still have asset forfeiture, garnishment and other repercussions if you default on the loan. You can try to dissolve them by filing bankruptcy, but you still might not clear the debt and filing comes with its own financial repercussions.

I doubt pretty much anyone took out those loans in quite the premeditated way you're describing.

As to everyone else's financial state, whoa nelly.

2. Starting with unemployment. There are still states where gig and other nontraditional workers haven't been even able to get on the unemployment database systems because they are run on such outdated software. Nevada gig workers will finally be able to apply this weekend. And in most states there are still gig workers who have applied being told they'll get actual payments in a few weeks (same as they told them in April) because their classification systems are equally hosed.

Then there's the thousands of people in every state, laid off or fired from W2 jobs but still waiting for applications to be processed, appeals to be addressed or claims to be paid. Like my son, who still does his determination every two weeks but hasn't seen a cent, because most of his 4 quarter work history was in the state we live, Illinois, but he'd taken a new job in Iowa a few weeks before they let go of all 90-day probationary employees due to the Covid shutdown. So, he's entitled to benefits but was originally denied, and though he's submitted all the paperwork to process his appeal, the appeal has just been sitting there for months. He can't even get a person on the phone, with some of their numbers so busy that he's gotten 'call cannot be completed' type messages that none of us have ever heard before. And he's hardly an isolated case.

3. And then there's the stimulus, which many haven't even got yet. I finally got mine last week, after checking that damned GetMyPayment app every day for months. My mother's only came in a couple weeks before that. And for some people they won't see that money until they file their 2020 taxes, in large part because they extended the tax filing deadline but didn't tell anyone that not filing could entirely screw up your getting your check in the same run as those who did file taxes in 2018 & 2019. My kid was smart, he budgeted his check in case his unemployment was delayed. But it runs out pretty soon.

Both mine and mom's are already gone, btw. Catastrophic car failures wiped out what was left after catching up on SOME of the costs of Covid, like buying the necessary home equipment to do 2 semester's of school work entirely from home and the extra expense that grocery shopping became, when only premium or organic versions of things were left on the shelves. I'm sure my 50-60 something aunts and uncles are coasting financially right now, but I don't know anyone else who is.

We are SUPPOSED to be able to coast if necessary, but the systems intended to make that happen are still screwed up in major ways. Which is probably making some of the more predatory MS jobs 'appealing' to some very desperate souls.

More to the topic, the jobs really pissing me off are the ones that feel like an excuse to give the company hiring the MS company your personal information or money. Like the latest "you must owe $10k in rotating debt and let the target debt-relief agency legitimately run your credit" job, where you are required to send personal financial information to the hiring agency in order to be booked for this $50 gig.

And then there's the Lion's Den jobs, offering $15 whole dollars and up to a $15 compensation, and you must buy something at least $10 and pay in cash. They'll know of you don't, because of the cameras, but they need you to tell them if the person pockets the cash without the cameras catching them. Do you know what you can buy for $15 in that store? Novelty crap. Even their DVDs are usually $25 and up. Know where those stores are? Out by interstate junctions, where the truckers will see them. Which means a drive to get there. Oh, and you have to ask for assistance with product choices, for $10-15 purchase in a store which carries $200 vibrators or $20 plastic 'massagers' and little in between? Sure.

You wonder how much profit can be made at paying MSers to step into their stores with the hope that they'll buy something a lot more than $15 and just treat their reimbursement and shopper fee like a coupon. It's unsurprising that these shops often sit there untouched.

@CleverK wrote:

1. PPP loans do NOT become grants by default if you close your business. They CAN be forgiveable loans, in whole or in part, and if you borrowed less that $25k you probably didn't have to put down any collateral. But for larger loans you can still have asset forfeiture, garnishment and other repercussions if you default on the loan. You can try to dissolve them by filing bankruptcy, but you still might not clear the debt and filing comes with its own financial repercussions.

I doubt pretty much anyone took out those loans in quite the premeditated way you're describing.

Thanks for the post. This is a good clarification/correction!

Right. They aren't forgiven in the same sense of someone staying in business and keeping their staff on board, but they may not be collect-able if a recipient goes out of business.

I'm not an expert on this topic, but CNBC had a recent piece covering the different aspects and scenarios relating to it. A good distinction they make does, in fact, involve larger size loans where there may be collateral and other guarantees. Those can be scarier situations.

Small businesses expect to fail. Here’s what will happen to their PPP loans. (June 24)
[www.cnbc.com]

In terms of how common a "premeditated" use of PPP loans in this way may have been, I definitely don't have any idea. I mentioned hearing it talked about on a financial show (but still speculation). ....It could be a "risk" going forward, but more importantly, I expect a lot of businesses to go under (or downsize with layoffs) after we reopen and PPP loans expire from well-intentioned people too.

Just natural business-cycle layoffs, but also amplified by COVID and the various bubbles we've built up in the economy since 2008-9 (sub-prime autos, corporate debt, U.S. shale, student loans, etc.).

It took 6 years after the 2008-9 Great Recession to see unemployment get back to where it was pre-crisis. I shudder to think how long it will take this time, how large the gig work community will get, and how depressed fees may be after this 2020 global depression.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/26/2020 01:02PM by shoptastic.

@CleverK wrote:

2. Starting with unemployment. There are still states where gig and other nontraditional workers haven't been even able to get on the unemployment database systems because they are run on such outdated software. Nevada gig workers will finally be able to apply this weekend. And in most states there are still gig workers who have applied being told they'll get actual payments in a few weeks (same as they told them in April) because their classification systems are equally hosed.

Then there's the thousands of people in every state, laid off or fired from W2 jobs but still waiting for applications to be processed, appeals to be addressed or claims to be paid. Like my son, who still does his determination every two weeks but hasn't seen a cent, because most of his 4 quarter work history was in the state we live, Illinois, but he'd taken a new job in Iowa a few weeks before they let go of all 90-day probationary employees due to the Covid shutdown. So, he's entitled to benefits but was originally denied, and though he's submitted all the paperwork to process his appeal, the appeal has just been sitting there for months. He can't even get a person on the phone, with some of their numbers so busy that he's gotten 'call cannot be completed' type messages that none of us have ever heard before. And he's hardly an isolated case.

3. And then there's the stimulus, which many haven't even got yet. I finally got mine last week, after checking that damned GetMyPayment app every day for months. My mother's only came in a couple weeks before that. And for some people they won't see that money until they file their 2020 taxes, in large part because they extended the tax filing deadline but didn't tell anyone that not filing could entirely screw up your getting your check in the same run as those who did file taxes in 2018 & 2019. My kid was smart, he budgeted his check in case his unemployment was delayed. But it runs out pretty soon.

Both mine and mom's are already gone, btw. Catastrophic car failures wiped out what was left after catching up on SOME of the costs of Covid, like buying the necessary home equipment to do 2 semester's of school work entirely from home and the extra expense that grocery shopping became, when only premium or organic versions of things were left on the shelves. I'm sure my 50-60 something aunts and uncles are coasting financially right now, but I don't know anyone else who is.

We are SUPPOSED to be able to coast if necessary, but the systems intended to make that happen are still screwed up in major ways. Which is probably making some of the more predatory MS jobs 'appealing' to some very desperate souls.

Very good points too.

I was sloppy with my characterizations, despite hearing of these horror stories too! I know Florida was one of the states with a dinosaur-like computer system used to process claims.

I believe Texas was another state with a delay. Two big, populous states and GOP grounds too. So, yeah, there are LOTS of desperate people out there still.

I feel for anyone having to do these no-fee shops (with the added risk of the MSC/client not paying during this pandemic)!!

@Flash wrote:

I saw the 3-2-1 deal and shook my head. I can imagine that many MSCs are on hard times due to COVID and For these companies I will seriously consider accepting work with pay cuts for a time, but I do expect they will remember who helped them out.

^^THAT^^ is the key. Loyalty has to go both ways.

@shoptastic wrote:

Small businesses expect to fail. Here’s what will happen to their PPP loans. (June 24)
[www.cnbc.com]

That's kind of funny. I read that same article over yesterday, and that's why I knew some details were a bit muddy. But I was looking for something specific at the time, for something I was writing, so it was closer to hard skim than a deep read. If I had, I might've realized we were reference the same piece.

In my normal and rational brain, I feel so sorry for anyone who loses their business in this mess. But the numbers trigger a bit of resentment, and a sort of "it must be nice to even be dealing with such sums," when my credit score took so much damage from this same mess that I couldn't even get a car loan preauth from Capital One, when I had gotten one in January but thought I was being responsible by putting off having a car payment and hoping my best up old car would hold out one more year.

In rationally world though, it reminds me of how many shows and films didn't survive the 07-08 writer's strike, and how much it sucks when something's so far outside your control destroys a lot of hard work. But I actually feel like we have a better chance at bouncing back than we have at any of the bubbles bursts and market crashes in the past, because we've been given a good view of the fact that essential workers are more than just doctors and nurses. They're also sanitation workers, grocery store clerks and Lyft drivers. And the lack of a living wage for all those workers is telling about our past priorities..

It may be wishful thinking, but there's been such a shift in public conscience overall, particularly in the last month, that I can't help but be hopeful that such a change is inevitable.

Pay is definitely going down for shopping. I did a second shop after Covid today, another fast food. It paid $10 total. The food came to $7.50, so I got only $2.50 for fee. When I finished thTe report, I was just perusing my Shop Log and realized I did the same shop before Covid, last February. At that time, I received $7 in fee plus $7.45 reimbursement, total $14.45. So after Covid, the fee went from $7 to a measly $2.50?

Oops, I reread it. It says "Reimbursement up to $10". I get a stinking feeling I am getting only $7.50 back. The shop did not allow me to order more; cannot order a dessert unless prompted by the order taker. So, all that work, photos galore, for a measly $7.50 fast food meal. I could have made myself a nice dinner at home.

This same shop was rewritten to reimburse up to $25. The catch is you are only allowed the 3-piece Chicken Combo, $9.87. The shop is really less than $10, not even close to $25. No Shopper Fee. Isn't that tricky enticement in their emails?

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/08/2020 06:07PM by ShopperFun99.

@CleverK wrote:

Then there's the thousands of people in every state, laid off or fired from W2 jobs but still waiting for applications to be processed, appeals to be addressed or claims to be paid. Like my son, who still does his determination every two weeks but hasn't seen a cent, because most of his 4 quarter work history was in the state we live, Illinois, but he'd taken a new job in Iowa a few weeks before they let go of all 90-day probationary employees due to the Covid shutdown. So, he's entitled to benefits but was originally denied, and though he's submitted all the paperwork to process his appeal, the appeal has just been sitting there for months. He can't even get a person on the phone, with some of their numbers so busy that he's gotten 'call cannot be completed' type messages that none of us have ever heard before. And he's hardly an isolated case.


Hey @CleverK, it sounds like your son started a new job in Iowa, and then covid hit, and he was let go? In that case, I think he would have applied for unemployment in Iowa. They are terrible with the phone lines, but their email response is pretty good and they responded within hours for me. Also, we have to file every week, not every two weeks, so make sure he is doing that because otherwise they won't pay anything for the weeks that he didn't file.
^I'm not sure why it's still in the grayed out font but that message is from me!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/27/2020 07:33AM by chiffon cupcakes.

@CleverK wrote:

And then there's the Lion's Den jobs, offering $15 whole dollars and up to a $15 compensation, and you must buy something at least $10 and pay in cash. They'll know of you don't, because of the cameras, but they need you to tell them if the person pockets the cash without the cameras catching them. Do you know what you can buy for $15 in that store? Novelty crap. Even their DVDs are usually $25 and up. Know where those stores are? Out by interstate junctions, where the truckers will see them. Which means a drive to get there. Oh, and you have to ask for assistance with product choices, for $10-15 purchase in a store which carries $200 vibrators or $20 plastic 'massagers' and little in between? Sure.

You wonder how much profit can be made at paying MSers to step into their stores with the hope that they'll buy something a lot more than $15 and just treat their reimbursement and shopper fee like a coupon. It's unsurprising that these shops often sit there untouched.

I agree! The only thing you can buy in Lion's Den for under $15 are little lollipops and flavored condoms! Even the blue wig that I wanted cost $50 it's obviously not a scam, but it sort of felt that way

@chiffon cupcakes wrote:

^I'm not sure why it's still in the grayed out font but that message is from me!

Hi, chiffon cupcakes

Your OWN message has to be outside of the " [/quote] " command.

Any time you quote someone, you will see that it starts with " [ quote ] " (the begin quote command and ends up
" [/quote] " (the end quote command). If your own message is inside there, it'll show as part of the quote (the greyed area). So, all ya gotta do is get your stuff outside and you're good to go!

ETA: Woah...I see how sensitive it is, as it created quotes unintentionally in my own post here and I was trying to just demonstrate what you'd want to type. I had to use " " around the bracketed quote commands and even space out the brackets from one of them to be sure it didn't perform the command I was simply trying to demonstrate.

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/27/2020 08:00AM by shoptastic.

None, I don't do non profit shops.

Double whammy: The MSC offering these shops has been late with shopper payments for over a year and is being sued for nonpayment by another MSC.

@CleverK wrote:

And then there's the Lion's Den jobs, offering $15 whole dollars and up to a $15 compensation, and you must buy something at least $10 and pay in cash. They'll know of you don't, because of the cameras, but they need you to tell them if the person pockets the cash without the cameras catching them. Do you know what you can buy for $15 in that store? Novelty crap. Even their DVDs are usually $25 and up. Know where those stores are? Out by interstate junctions, where the truckers will see them. Which means a drive to get there. Oh, and you have to ask for assistance with product choices, for $10-15 purchase in a store which carries $200 vibrators or $20 plastic 'massagers' and little in between? Sure.

You wonder how much profit can be made at paying MSers to step into their stores with the hope that they'll buy something a lot more than $15 and just treat their reimbursement and shopper fee like a coupon. It's unsurprising that these shops often sit there untouched.

@MSF wrote:

Double whammy: The MSC offering these shops has been late with shopper payments for over a year and is being sued for nonpayment by another MSC.

Yeah, I stopped shopping for them because I didn't want to wait 3-4 months for payment. It was just too long for me, and I didn't want to keep worrying that one day I wouldn't be paid

Any of the cell phone shops. Long reports, lots of time waiting ... waiting ... waiting to talk with a sales associate.

@CleverK wrote:

I couldn't even get a car loan preauth from Capital One, when I had gotten one in January but thought I was being responsible by putting off having a car payment and hoping my best up old car would hold out one more year.

CleverK,

Credit ratings aside, I do know that we've had a huge used car glut in the U.S. for the past few years. It's been building up and dealers seem to be in a bad spot. This is one of those times when the buyer may have a lot of bargaining power.

Although, with COVID and high unemployment, credit has tightened a lot. Still, on the supply side, cars have piled up unsold over the past few years coming into the virus.

And another with spam in the sig line. SMH. Where are they coming from all of a sudden? lol

And to add to the topic, hopefully no shop offers "angers" me because there are so many more important things to be concerned about, yet I feel for the shoppers who used to rely on shops that now have their fees slashed. I can totally understand their frustration. Mystery shopping, like everything else, has changed.

@kimmiemae, you took the words right out of my mouth! My comment was not made in anger. Thank you for pointing out that we might choose, feel, or do something else besides be angry.

apartment shops for $25, auto dealership shops for $35, shops requiring a report for $10

No-fee shops. I don't generally demand big fees but throw me a bone already. I'm not working for a coupon. I've never accepted a no-fee shop and never will.

A $10 storage shop when the pre-COVID fee was $25.