Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/04/09/6-6m-joined-unemployed-line-la.html
…
2 Likes
I really hope that someone can get this through the Republican’s thick skulls into their tiny, tiny brains:
This is not an economic issue like others in the past. The economy hasn’t stopped, it has hibernated.
If they provide enough unemployment and stimulus to people to keep everyone’s finances secure, when this ends, they will come out and buy buy buy - everything that they wanted/needed during the quarantine that they couldn’t get.
If they half ass it and people’s finances become worysome then consumer confidence is going to fall and even once this ends they won’t buy because they are waiting for the other shoe to fall.
I mean, I do believe that this is going to drastically change buying habits and there are going to be changes in the structure of the economy going forward, but the only way to prevent catastrophic economic disruption is to provide enough financial aid to everyone so they don’t feel economically pressured during this time.
13 Likes
There are no experts here. We’re in uncharted territory where the entire economy is on halt. And not locally where it could be absorbed.
4 Likes
Right, a lot of the new unemployed will get their jobs back. It’s a furlough that will have the marvelous side effect of converting millions of employed workers into contractors, and let Trump write off any and all economic bad news this year as rona rather than anything bad he or congress did in the last four years.
While I’m being cynical, the 100k-250k death toll prediction is bait to make anything south of 99k seem like a victory. What a bunch of rubes newsmedia are for making a meal of it.
7 Likes
The trick is to make sure that Trump doesn’t write the history and he’s remembered as a one-term looser.
And everyone should refuse to work as a contractor. They need us more than we need them, and this should prove it.
Edited to rephrase: It’s OK to contract out for other companies if you get paid enough to pay for your business expenses, all the insurances including health insurance, and a healthy, living wage based on working less than 40 hours a week. If you’re not setting your price and making enough to do that, that’s not cool.
7 Likes
That’s a long line if they’re all 6 feet apart.
1 Like
I have to add, as a Canadian, we’re hit just about the same with this. The difference is: free healthcare and Employment Insurance. EI is something that everyone pays into, and can claim benefits after losing work. But you know, socialism.
3 Likes
For the GOP, the problem is that there really isn’t any way to make the poor people bear all the costs of shutting down for a few months. Lots of people and businesses have fixed costs that won’t simply disappear. Rents and loan payments chief among them. And you or your businesses rents are just somebody else’s mortgage. For the most part, the people that owe that money just don’t have it. Even if the country opens back up quickly, there is no way that most of those payments that were due during the stay at home are going to be made. And the people that are going to be owed that money are rich people.
Getting people and the economy working again is going to require laws to passed to make the wealthy that can afford to take those losses to take them. Failing that, all the stimulus in the world will only go towards repaying debts, not getting consumers spending and companies hiring. And for the last 30-40 years, the name of the game in Washington has been to kowtow to bankers and Wall Street and give them everything that they could ask for. I am pessimistic enough that I don’t think that a few hundred thousand bodies are going to change that. We will see some changes, but the powers that be have spent the last 40 years convincing themselves that the answer to ANY economic problem is giving the richest Americans more money, and I am afraid that is going to be too slow to change for us to get out of the greater recession quickly.
5 Likes
7,500 Miles long or roughly the distance from NYC to Seattle to Los Angeles to Orlando and back to NYC.
3 Likes
I somehow feel I should ask you to show your work 
2 Likes
Are you a teacher?
The total # of claims from the past 3 weeks is greater than 16,780,000 which would make the unemployment line +19,000 miles long.
1 Like
Is everyone filling for unemployment considered laid off? That’s certainly not what I see. Yes people are working less, but they are filling for unemployment to fill the gap. That is slightly different than not having a job at all.
But are you factoring in the 6’ social distancing requirement?
Think of corporate America as a leaking hot air balloon loaded with gold and people. The people get thrown out first. Those cash reserves serve only the top of the org chart.
“The number of dead Americans is only twice as many as the number who died in the Vietnam war! Trump is a hero!”
If Trump can hold American deaths to about 10K or so then yeah, he’d be a hero. More than that, total zero.
** looks at newspaper **
Whoops.
Yes. And assuming the 6ft is measured on-center. The math works.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
