Frustrating, frightening and 100% truth.@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.
To this point, NPR and NYT have been reporting on the effects of the decline in "rich" spending:@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.
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.@ 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."
If wealthy and older people don't want to spend, you cannot easily revive the economy.@ 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.
@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.@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.
@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...
Thanks for the post. This is a good clarification/correction!@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.
Very good points too.@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.
^^THAT^^ is the key. Loyalty has to go both ways.@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.
@shoptastic wrote:
Small businesses expect to fail. Here’s what will happen to their PPP loans. (June 24)
[www.cnbc.com]
@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.
@chiffon cupcakes wrote:
^I'm not sure why it's still in the grayed out font but that message is from me!
@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.
CleverK,@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.