Author Topic: Coronavirus COVID-19  (Read 65080 times)

micah

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Re: Coronavirus COVID-19
« Reply #180 on: March 26, 2020, 11:03:38 PM »
yeah, too little too late.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I'll take the money.  But even the patriots have a better chance of rebuilding in the next year than our economy does.

So many business are closing and so many will never reopen.  They just can't.  Even major chains, like The Cheesecake Factory, said they don't have the cash flow to make rent on their locations.  Other dining chains that were allowed to stay open for take out are closing anyway (like Red Robin) because it's not worth staying open.

My girlfriend works for a regional chain of hardware and pet stores.  They're allowed to stay open as they provide necessary consumer commodities...but after everyone stocked up the first week, business is way way way down.  On top of that, they decided to do curb-side pickup instead of having foot traffic in store.  The cost of paying employees, in some locations, exceeds the net income to the store.  My girlfriend, who can see all stores real-time sales figures, said that one store GROSSED less than $1,000 a day this week.

When this is all over, the survivors are going to be the mega corporations that were allowed to remain open and could handle the costs associated with doing business during the pandemic.  Walmart, Target, CVS, Walgreens, Amazon... they all have CEO's on the presidential task force and they're all actually staffing UP and giving raises and bonuses to employees (as they should)--- all the while, smaller chains simply can not compete. 

Retail margins are low - restaurants are even lower.  I don't see our local "country dinner" (thats the name) which closed last week ever reopening.
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Re: Coronavirus COVID-19
« Reply #181 on: March 27, 2020, 08:07:13 AM »
>Canada promised 2K to every taxpayer for every month we're in this thing.

Yeah, for everyone that has lost all income. It's nice that anyone can qualify, even if they don't qualify for EI. This means contractors and self-employed people too who haven't necessarily been paying into the EI program.

My wife has probably lost about half of her income, which really sucks. She is still making some money so she doesn't qualify for the government help.

ober

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Re: Coronavirus COVID-19
« Reply #182 on: March 27, 2020, 09:02:42 AM »
Ah, that's different than what I heard.

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Re: Coronavirus COVID-19
« Reply #183 on: March 27, 2020, 10:03:50 AM »
Yeah that's what I understand from a first glance at reading the site, hopefully I'm wrong and she does qualify for something.

Jake

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Re: Coronavirus COVID-19
« Reply #184 on: March 27, 2020, 10:49:22 AM »
Denmark is covering 75% of employees salaries https://www.macleans.ca/economy/economicanalysis/how-denmark-got-ahead-of-the-covid-19-economic-crisis/

I wonder how long they can sustain that for - sure they are a super small country, but wow.

The measures being taken by all these countries just point at how really negative the outlook for this is. :(
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Mike

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Re: Coronavirus COVID-19
« Reply #185 on: March 27, 2020, 11:39:25 AM »
One thing that is kind of annoying about these stimulus plans (and taxes in general) is that they never adjust for cost of living.  The US is huge and has a lot of diverse economies so treating monolithically is sometimes frustrating.

Fortunately, both my wife and I are still full time employed and it doesn't look to be changing so we don't really need it.

ober

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Re: Coronavirus COVID-19
« Reply #186 on: March 27, 2020, 01:03:59 PM »
Yeah Mike... I thought that too.  COL is massively different depending on where you live.  This 'one size fits all' thing sucks but at least it's better than nothing for some.

charlie

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Re: Coronavirus COVID-19
« Reply #187 on: March 27, 2020, 04:53:40 PM »
Honestly I'm "happy" with the U.S. response so far relative to expectations. Seems like Republicans were a lot more open to certain types of relief than they were in 2008-09. I think the unemployment benefits are big in that it allows businesses to lay off workers for now and hire them back later, although you all are right about the fixed costs being a significant hurdle.

I expect there will be a push for a "phase 4" in a month or so once the real numbers come in. I'm not sure there's a choice, given that if we don't do this then the economy will be hit just as hard by the pandemic itself.

Mike

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Re: Coronavirus COVID-19
« Reply #188 on: March 27, 2020, 05:41:57 PM »
It might have been hard to work out in time but I would rather have seen the money go to boost unemployment coverage for those that were laid off or had hours reduce.  As I mentioned, my wife and I are still working full time and we aren't concerned about paying our mortgage, bills, or getting groceries.  We don't really need the money.  My friend who got laid off  temporarily does.

That said, I'll applaud their efforts to put this together rather quickly and with such support from all involved.


charlie

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Re: Coronavirus COVID-19
« Reply #189 on: March 28, 2020, 02:25:16 AM »
It might have been hard to work out in time but I would rather have seen the money go to boost unemployment coverage for those that were laid off or had hours reduce.  As I mentioned, my wife and I are still working full time and we aren't concerned about paying our mortgage, bills, or getting groceries.  We don't really need the money.  My friend who got laid off  temporarily does.

That said, I'll applaud their efforts to put this together rather quickly and with such support from all involved.

I think at 100%+ salary there's not much more they could have done for unemployment. (I'm not sure how much there is for folks who simply reduced hours, though.)

The money for everybody I think is more for keeping the economy afloat than specifically to help people recover from major income loss.

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Re: Coronavirus COVID-19
« Reply #190 on: March 28, 2020, 10:49:38 AM »
Agreed with Charlie on the reasoning.  The idea is that we all have money to continue buying things and keeping businesses going.  Yes it will help some that have lost jobs or have reduced hours but getting us all to keep spending is at least half the idea.

micah

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Re: Coronavirus COVID-19
« Reply #191 on: March 28, 2020, 11:40:48 AM »
Agreed with Charlie on the reasoning.  The idea is that we all have money to continue buying things and keeping businesses going.  Yes it will help some that have lost jobs or have reduced hours but getting us all to keep spending is at least half the idea.

it's just, we're all going to spend the money on amazon and walmart.  All the local businesses, the small chains; are closed.  So "The" econnomy will keep getting money pumped into it, but I don't see it really helping local micro-economies.
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Re: Coronavirus COVID-19
« Reply #192 on: March 28, 2020, 11:44:25 AM »
I disagree.  I specifically have been trying to spend money locally.  As should you.  I know some businesses are closed but feeding money to the ones that are open will only bolster the others when they reopen.  If we all only shop at online retailers we're only fucking ourselves. 

Mike

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Re: Coronavirus COVID-19
« Reply #193 on: March 28, 2020, 01:54:28 PM »
It might have been hard to work out in time but I would rather have seen the money go to boost unemployment coverage for those that were laid off or had hours reduce.  As I mentioned, my wife and I are still working full time and we aren't concerned about paying our mortgage, bills, or getting groceries.  We don't really need the money.  My friend who got laid off  temporarily does.

That said, I'll applaud their efforts to put this together rather quickly and with such support from all involved.

I think at 100%+ salary there's not much more they could have done for unemployment. (I'm not sure how much there is for folks who simply reduced hours, though.)
I think I missed that part.  Do you know how long it'll be funded for?

Quote
The money for everybody I think is more for keeping the economy afloat than specifically to help people recover from major income loss.
But I have money to keep doing what I'm doing.  /shrug  I guess I just want to make sure that the people who are getting fucked the hardest are being taken care of (I'm sure you do as well)

I disagree.  I specifically have been trying to spend money locally.  As should you.  I know some businesses are closed but feeding money to the ones that are open will only bolster the others when they reopen.  If we all only shop at online retailers we're only fucking ourselves. 
I know personally since I'm not going out as much it is a lot harder to spend locally.  I'm certainly not going to the movies anytime soon.  We are still ordering from the same restaurants but certainly not as often (partly because my wife is more risk adverse than I am) and most of them are chains.  I'm certainly not going to the sketchy hole-in-the-wall Mexican place even though their taco tuesday is so good.  I do run to the hardware store but that's an Ace so while a local store it isn't like a mom-and-pop.

charlie

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Re: Coronavirus COVID-19
« Reply #194 on: March 28, 2020, 10:25:29 PM »
I think I missed that part.  Do you know how long it'll be funded for?

I don't remember seeing it definitively, but if I recall correctly it's at least "months". (Side note, it looked like I was saying 100% plus salary, but I meant reimbursement of full salary plus in some cases a little bit more- which is why some Republicans almost held up the bill in the Senate.)


But I have money to keep doing what I'm doing.  /shrug  I guess I just want to make sure that the people who are getting fucked the hardest are being taken care of (I'm sure you do as well)

Nah, not really. I want the cash. It's time for a new phone.

Ha ha, just kidding. I'm sure it's more that it's too hard to target the people who really need it so it's better to just give the checks to everybody and then if you really want to get the money back from those who don't need it you use the tax code later.