What if they have a bad credit rating? Prior bankruptcy? Multiple prior bankruptcies? Shady dealings with foreign governments?
At what point would a bank rationally deny a government employee a loan? We’re talking about 800,000 people, there will be many examples of people who have good reasons not to take a loan, and many examples of people who a bank would reasonably deny a loan of any amount.
Tack on the uncertainty of the duration of the shutdown. Trump rattled off that he would be willing to shut down the government for years if necessary. Would that give you a warm-and-fuzzy feeling that your loan would be repaid? Would you take out a loan based on the assurance that the shutdown will end soon, or end up facing stiff penalties for being unable to repay it?
In the U.S., where 40% of adults don’t have enough savings to handle a $400 emergency and where consumer debt levels are already out of control, two weeks without pay amounts to a lot worse than a temporary cash-flow problem. Making the generous assumption that a bank or other company would make a cash loan to these folks (and at a rate far greater than 4%), it could mean permanent financial precarity for the borrower. Absent that generous assumption (as is more probable), you’re looking at eviction notices, late payments on mortgages, missed credit card payments, and going without food or medication by month’s end.
That situation bestowed upon America by out-of-touch greedpigs like Wilbur Ross.
Oh I am not saying it is good or fair or ethical, especially for essential workers required to work during the shutdown and for those legally prohibited from seeking side work. All I am saying is that if we had a financial system that actually worked for working people, the impact would be a lot less than it is.
I’ll just answer to the first message. We don’t seem to understand each others. My point is not that civil servant have a solution, my point is that, for a proportion of these civil servants, it would make business sense for a banker to help with their cash flow at 4% interest rate for a month or two. Yet they are not helped, so what is the reason?
From your post, the reason may be that a proportion of them are already bankrupt. I found that hard to believe since civil servants usually have reasonably stable jobs. But it is possible, I don’t know. But if it is so, the US economy is in a far worse shape than I thought, which is yet another of the “frightening answers” I was thinking about.
A very good point. It’s like how all the people who complain that teachers are lazy and overpaid love their own kids’ teacher.
Well I’m not going to say I don’t find that baffling. But hey, why end the shut down and give people their paychecks back now when you can promise to do something in the future, I guess.
“If we had some bacon, we could have bacon and eggs… If only we had eggs…” The point is that the system we have now is shattered , except as a means for the already-wealthy and -powerful to bleed money and work from the lower classes.
Ross and his ilk cannot be made to understand the realities of the working classes; the entire cohort have spent too much effort in making sure that they never have to live “like that”, and sacrificed all of their empathy in the process. Somehow, the electorate needs to impeach every last corporate shill or trust-fund brat, and enact laws preventing anyone with access to any kind of resource above a very low threshold from holding public office. They can go on to become rich after retiring from public service. But I imagine that an expansion of the emoluments clause to cover ALL public office-holders at EVERY level of government down to “municipal” AND including VERY sharp legal teeth, might be an interesting response.
No thanks, I remember the last time that happened.
The consensus today is that the FMD virus came from infected or contaminated meat that was part of the swill being fed to pigs at Burnside Farm in Heddon-on-the-wall. The swill had not been properly heat-sterilized and the virus had thus been allowed to infect the pigs.
I don’t want to experience that orange glow of pyres burning all night ever again, or the smell of burned animal that you can’t get out of your hair because as soon as you wash it you have to go back into the stinking air.
(I know you weren’t being serious, but those memories are bad)
I’m no scholar, but it seems to cover federal and state officers. The main problem seems to be the lack of teeth, rather than the number of people subject to it.
I’m pretty sure I understand what you’re saying. That’s why I answered it from both the perspective of the individual government worker who is not getting paid and from the perspective of a banker who would consider a loan to said worker.
Over the past decade, there has been an average of over 1 million individual (as opposed to corporate) bankruptcy filings per year. The peak year was 2010 in the thick of the financial crisis. We’re not talking about people who were living on the edge of poverty, either. The most common cause of bankruptcy during that time was foreclosure of primary residence, as mortgage holders found themselves with homes worth significantly less than their loan amount. That was a middle-class problem, not a minimum-wage worker problem. Needless to say, statistically speaking, there are probably thousands of government workers with such a previous bankruptcy. If I was a banker considering a loan for a government worker with bad credit, especially previous foreclosure/bankruptcy, even if I wanted to extend a loan to that individual, I would be prevented from doing so by either company policy or government regulation, or both.
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
So it appear to cover any “Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under [the United States]”. I think it can be fair to argue that this would definitely cover the President, VP, Congresscritters, Senators, and Judges. A reasonable argument could be made that it would cover any official that requires Senate confirmation and US Military Officers. It might go as far as covering all Federal employees.
But I don’t think, on its face, it would extend to employees or officers of a State. Andrew Cuomo does not hold an office of profit or trust under the US, but rather one under the State of New York.
