Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/04/21/vi-hart-explains-the-four-phas.html
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Video link for the BBS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhRQxk9QA-o
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I prefer the plan from Emacs Hart.
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Also, Gov. Kemp?
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You can always tell an Emacs-user: they have reverse-carpal-tunnel braces for just their pinkies.
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I see in the opening that she’s a senior project researcher (I think?) at Microsoft now. I think she was teaching before. Good to gather she’s getting paid better.
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The testing council seems like a no-brainer to me. Any sane solution requires a ton of relatively inexpensive testing.
I’d love to see exactly how countries that are testing at rates that dwarf ours manage to do so and what are the roadblocks against us doing the same. I doubt there’s any clean narrative, but I think it would be close to the single most valuable thing that governments can do, outside of enforcing lock downs.
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A Microsoft employee? Go figure.
“What’s the time-sheet code for trying to save the planet?”
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Flush Gordon: “Flush, Ah, ah, He’ll kill ev’ry one of us!”
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Vi Hart!
and now my oldest daughter is old enough to enjoy her
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This might be the best possible way to deal with the situation, unfortunately it still won’t save a lot of small companies who see the end in sight now. Reopening businesses like restaurants, clubs, stores, etc. (the ones that can survive until the summer), but requiring them to have a reduced capacity is still a death sentence for places that were just barely making a profit at full capacity. There will have to be a federal government response to the closed storefronts, or else there will still be high unemployment.
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I concur. Maybe this is an effective and efficient public health approach but I didn’t see much about balancing economic consequences (in the first 5 mins wherein I got the gist). Starts and stops are no fun but it gives the little guys a chance.
I’d say, right now, the public health approach is what should be prioritized, full stop - there is not likely to be much of an economy if millions die. 
We should also stop giving money to large corporations and prioritize funding small businesses, instead of giving million dollar grants ear marked for small businesses to Ruth Chris and Shake Shack?
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I was fixating on the method the presenter was drawing those graphics in Adobe Illustrator until I realized they were just using the Direct Selection tool to delete one shape at a time and then playing the video backwards.
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Phase 0.5 - change the occupant of the oval office?
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Ruths Chris and Shake Shack have numerous locations and employ (and are attempting to retain) thousands of employees. Should those employees be less protected because they work for those companies? Their counts and size aren’t the problem. The problem was the program self-selected capable applicants - those with lawyers and bankers who could pounce - not the little guys. By the time the little guys fought their way through the application and lined up, funds were gone. The funding should just be uncapped so the late applicants get the same thing they’d have gotten if they lined up Day 1. I have no problem with the big guys (who are big employers) getting what is the same per head (which is how the program essentially works) help so long is not in lieu of the same for the little guys.
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Which should immediately disqualify them from getting a loan earmarked for a small business…
No. They should not be eligible for loans earmarked for businesses with less than 500 workers, which was what that program was meant to do.
Oh, it’s almostl ike this needed oversight or something… too bad those do nothing democrats didn’t include anything liek that… /s Oh… wait. They did and Trump just ignored it.
There was only SO much funding from the fed and larger businesses, who have more access to capital and larger profit margins gobbled that shit up. There was only so much money, and the corporations with lawyers and economists on staff got it, not small businesses. FFS, Shake Shack was do embarrassed by getting caught masquerading as a small business, they gave the money back!
The little guy is getting screwed. Again. These companies don’t give two shits about their employees, they only want to push the competition (locally owned upscale or mom-n-pop burger joints, which operate on razor thin margins) out.
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I don’t think you know a lot about the program. First, the 500 number itself is arbitrary to start. Second, restaurant companies were specifically and intentionally exempted (as were hotel companies, and I am not aware of any other industry exemptions) from the rule that you had to otherwise aggregate all employees across all locations because legislators (dems and republicans) knew you had to help the sectors forced to close. It wasn’t a loophole that was exploited, it was how it was designed.
McDonalds franchises its locations so those are all under separate ownership, and McDonalds doesn’t itself file, location owners do. Dishwashers at McDonalds will see retention as a result of the program. In your view, Ruths Chris dishwashers shouldn’t. If Ruths Chris had the same model, you wouldn’t know they filed. That’s the only real difference.
Shake Shack was not embarrassed, it was shamed. And the program is only for 8 weeks, so it’s not the lifeline that’s going to sustain long anyway. I’m sure they just decided it wasn’t good enough to deal with the backlash from other folks who don’t know the details, just the headlines.
But it was part of it?
Then it will STILL benefit large corporations AT THE EXPENSE of actual small businesses.
Then the entire design WAS a loophole to funnel money to large corporations.
McDonalds shouldn’t get the funding either? How is this hard? They are a multi-national, even with the franchise model. The parent corp CAN and SHOULD pony up.
But I can see by this you are going to purposefully misrepresent what I’m saying here. Typical.
[ETA] BTW, there are protests from many small restaurants against chains like McDonalds getting this funding…
Thanks to… SURPRISE the GOP!
An earlier version of the legislation had reserved the whole pot for independently owned small businesses, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) slid in the provision allowing restaurant and hotel chains could qualify.
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