Ore. militants: Stop sending us sex toys, hate mail | 12newsnow.com

Remember when they took over public property and tax supported buildings and they did nothing?

Trump wants to challenge Biden to take cognitive test: report | TheHill

Please God, make this happen.

I forgot about the sex toys, LOL, that was awesome

Oh yes, the Branch Dildonians.

Press Secretary - "what he was making was a serious point, and that's why he said, "I don't kid." He was noting he was making a serious point, but he was using sarcasm to do that at the rally."

4D chess.

An anecdotal observation as we consider whether to do things like extend the CARES unemployment benefit. As restaurants are free to open up over the past weeks where I live, and many other businesses as well, a lot of them ... can't. Most restaurants in the small city where I live aren't even doing the 50% capacity dine-in. Not because there isn't demand, but because there's no available labor.

All of them are hurting. In a depressed economy, employees are scarce -- because the federal government will pay them more not to work. A lot more. We're seeing the results of what happens with top-down, one-size-fits-all solutions to the economic side while cost of living, the viability of various businesses due to differences in the virus etc. in states/regions, and so on often don't fit with that top-level calculation.

I don't expect it, but I do hope lawmakers more seriously consider these consequences in the next round.

At the request of multiple Republican state-level politicians in Mississippi, the head of RTS (conservative seminary, heavily PCA, main offices in Jackson) and the top two folks in the SBC there have issued long and detailed statements on why the flag should be changed. Given that reformed theology >>>> SBC theology ;), I'll present the statement by the RTS guy here:




(In fairness, the SBC statement is just as direct.)


Given that R politicians requested these strong statements from the most prominent conservative church leaders in Mississippi, it sounds like a given that the flag is about to be replaced.

Did we reach some critical mass where it's politically expedient to do this stuff? Because if you had asked them to do it like 5 years ago, this never would have happened

SI

I do think that providing everyone with larger stimulus checks and not tying it to unemployment would have been a better move. It would have still given people the cushion to not work if they couldn't, but it would not actually incentivize not working.



We need unions to make a real comback in this country, along with an increased minimum wage. The fact that an extra $600 a week outstripped people's wages to such a degree that it turned the labor market on its head shows that wages are WAY too low.

Collective bargaining is the capitalist driven way to get wages back to where they need to be. The longer they stay too low, the more you get people thinking that socialism is a valid path. I'd rather just pay people a living wage and avoid the socialist detour if we can help it.

Most of those guys were arrested and charged. One guy ("Tarp Man") was shot and killed by police.

If you can't find labor it means you aren't paying enough.

Or maybe paying people more not to work is just idiotic.

Well, I think if prominent R politicians had asked, they would have. The RTS guy in particular has been pretty much spot-on for years on racial issues, as far as I can tell. The remarkable part of this is that they spoke to R politicians about it, and the politicians asked them to go public.

Who is struggling to compete with $600/week with no benefits?

I mean this is the direct result of the protests that have been happening for the last 3 weeks. It's really changed people's thoughts and minds on things like the Confederate flag and what other symbols of racism have we just tolerated without thinking.

That's on top of regular unemployment. Which makes it more than what the median American makes.

State benefits are insurance, not a handout. They paid in for that. The $600/week ends in July and doesn't provide any health care or other benefits.

If people are turning down a long term job with benefits to keep unemployment for a couple months, your job offer sucks. Offer more money and you'll find more people willing to work for you.

And in the Atlanta area, not only are restaurants who want to opening up, but are butting up to the max limits (and many complaints that they weren't following the previous limitations) and have pushed the Governor to open up even more. They aren't having any issues hiring back staff - and in Georgia those folks are getting the same unemployment benefits as anywhere else.

That's not accurate. The CARES act made people eligible for unemployment who weren't paying into it. And the people who were paying into it weren't paying enough.

Yes, for self-employed and independent contractors. People who would not be in the market for the job you're talking about.

How were they not paying enough? Unemployment trusts go in the red during downtimes and in the black during prosperous times.

Yes, the CARES benefits results in some unemployed folks making a larger income than when they were working.

When that ends, in a month, all unemployed folks will go back to making significantly less income than when they were working.

I certainly don't but the suggestion that the latter eventuality will somehow be better for the economy.

I just don't think people are turning down permanent jobs with benefits so they can earn $600/week more for a couple months and have to pay out astronomical health insurance premiums through COBRA. Then pray that there are job openings at the end of July. It would be an insane risk.

The argument seems more to do with looking down on less fortunate people and being upset that they are being given help.

This is only an issue because we fucked up the closure so thoroughly. Imagine a scenario where far fewer people worked until the end of June and then things started to open very slowly. The CARES Act allowed that to happen, but everybody got impatient and now we're almost back where we started.

I was critical of CARES, but it turned out to work very well and could have been the solid backstop we needed as we knocked the virus down to manageable levels. Oh, well.

I think most folks on this board greatly overestimate the amount of time (prior to the last few weeks) that many educated white people ever thought about race-related issues at all. I often think about the line in “Remember The Titans” before their first game of the season. “Like all the other schools in this conference, they’re all white, so they don’t have to think about race.” Folks on this board are paying attention to this stuff. Many just....don’t.

I agree with you. FWIW you literally can't legally turn down a job offer that pays commensurate with your previous income & you have to apply for a number of jobs per week, in order to continue to collect unemployment benefits. I know all too well.

..that said you can certainly avoid job offers & stay unemployed, if that is your intent, but everyone collecting unemployment is legally required to look for work & accept job offers commensurate with their previous income.

The studies and data coming out are showing that the CARES Act was one of the best things we could have done. It stabilized an economy and kept low-income spending from falling off a cliff. There are parts to criticize (the slush fund for big businesses, PPP issues, etc), but getting money into the hands of low-income people worked.

https://opportunityinsights.org/wp-c...cker_paper.pdf

It’s also smart economic policy to put money in the hands of consumers that are the most likely to spend it during a recession.

I wonder if it’s not so much “looking down” as “living in an echo chamber and reflexively parroting right-wing talking points without applying any critical thought to it.” My view of this is admittedly colored by my in-laws. Just a couple of days ago, my wife and I moved them from “people are
Making more by not working! This is outrageous!” to “this is an important short-term help for lower-income folks who work in areas that may struggle for a long time” in like 3 minutes. They’d literally never heard or considered anything beyond Fox News’s talking points, and this despite my father-in-law being a very smart man (Duke medical, Johns Hopkins residency.) It’s like they’ve been trained to accept what they hear from their echo chamber without giving it any further thought.

I just don't get it. I mean, I lean pretty left but my browser auto completes to npr.org, cnn.com, foxnews.com, and even drudgereport.com (it's a good aggregator, even if I think the headlines are garbage). It's not like this information is hard to find.

SI

There are a number of industries that cannot afford to pay $50k/year - the upper limit on current unemployment compensation in my state with the CARES addition added on. If you increase prices to the point where you can afford that kind of wage, you lose most of your customers because there's a limit of what people will pay for many products.

You can say this just aren't paying enough, but the consequence of that is devastating significant parts of the economy. I doubt very much that most people would truly be fine with the results of that approach, which includes almost all mid-level and below restaurants going away, a lot of dollar-store outlets closing, major reductions in convenience stores and many other retailers, etc.


They absolutely are. What would it take to convince you? Do you want pictures of all the establishments in my area this is affecting? Interviews with the management of them? It's provably happening.


Those requirements have been suspended for the crisis in many places so that people aren't out looking for work engaging in risky virus-spreading behavior. I don't know the state-to-state situation, but I can tell you this is the case throughout Michigan by executive order of Gov. Whitmer. You don't have to do a darned thing but fill out a few questions every couple weeks on the website, no job search is required. I was on unemployment for the first time in my life until I got my new gig so I'm not speculating here, and I tried to help others deal with the process. I think suspending those limitations was good for public health reasons, but what I am saying is that we need to be smarter about these things.

Even with the whole 'we screwed up the re-opening' argument, that still doesn't do anything for the variances in cost-of-living between different jurisdictions or the fact that every state/region's circumstance vis a vis the virus is different. Ergo, a one-size-fits-all approach is always going to cause problems. Getting money into the hands of low-income people; good. Inhibiting the recovery via payouts to people who don't need it and not having means-testing involved; bad.


I'm glad Atlanta isn't getting hit as hard on this. What do you think the difference is?

Hmmm, interesting. Certainly hasn't been suspended in Oregon. A quick bit of googling implies that Michigan's unemployment program seems to require some sort of (weekly?) at-an-office, in-person activity, so I guess the suspension makes sense.

You need to keep in mind that many people in jobs that paid less than unemployment were either on state Medicaid or had no insurance benefits anyway and (at least in my state where I work in the industry) enrollment applications for Medicaid have jumped considerably.

Ironically, even the normal unemployment benefits are far too much income to qualify for Medicaid in Oregon.

Arizona has some of the lowest, so not an issue here

Yay? Good lord, I just went and looked. $240 per week! That would put me at negative $170 per month, after accounting for rent & absolutely nothing else.

Business is tough. No one is owed an unlimited supply of cheap labor at their disposal. And you don't get to snap your fingers hire people months after you just fired them.

I'm sorry that businesses can't compete with short term unemployment benefits. That's more an indictment on their pay and working conditions than it is on some temporary unemployment program.


I am sure there are businesses in the area that can't cut it. It's part of life.

All the more reason that they would jump at the chance to work a good job with medical insurance benefits.

Life is tough. No one is owed extra unemployment benefits just because they didn't plan ahead and save up money for emergencies like this pandemic.

See how that works? Why does that logic only apply to businesses for you and not for people?

The people they elected chose to provide them with a safety net. That is part of government and what they pay taxes for.

The $600/week also helps out businesses a great deal. Allows people to pay rent, mortgages, and other expenses during the pandemic. A good chunk of that money is going right back into the economy.

You probably meant the Bundy ranch deal in Nevada but Clive's Kids occupied and controlled a public National Wildlife Refuge headquarters for 41 days. CHAZ has some work to do to reach that milestone.

None of that is a useful logical distinction. My conclusion is that you don't have one to provide.

The government gave out over half a trillion dollars in PPP so that businesses could pay employees and have it fully reimbursed. This on top of the trillions that have been pumped into the debt market to open the credit market. These numbers dwarf the unemployment benefits given as part of the CARES Act.

And unlike the other programs, the unemployment benefits are kicked right back into the economy to keep businesses afloat. The harm in removing that is likely more than some employer having to fork over an extra $3/hour to hire someone.

Also jobless claims have been dropping as the economy re-opens. So people are more than willing to take a permanent job and work. So either the companies you talk to are offering dogshit pay or no one wants to work for them. Either way, they should have looked into PPP.

This is FOFC, so I assume people have done the basic math & realize $600/week = $15/hour for 40 hours, right? Plus it may not have health insurance tied into it, but it also has no taxes being taken out, so it's a full $2400/month.

That's not great if you're living in Chicago, or have a family, or want to be a fiscally responsible person long term, but that's enough for a single person in pretty much any city outside NYC/Chicago/SF/Boston to pay for an apartment, and a car, and have a social life (even before you assume you're saving $$$ on that due to COVID). A couple girls who are college-aged & work under me were half-joking about it, so I said yah let's run the numbers... and my conclusion was that if this wasn't running out in July they probably should quit and then come back or find a different job then. (The smartest move actually would've been to take an LoA from Amazon, get unemployment for now, then come back with your tenure once that went back to normal.)

Since we don't have the stomach to let people hurt economically if they're lazy, I'm all on board for Round 2 of direct stimulus checks regardless of employment. Mostly on principle, but also because I'm in that band where my standard of living and income wouldn't see that much difference if I continued working hard every week or sat on my ass. But y'all also understand that a lot of people can (and do) live on $600 or less a week in this country, right?
I just don't think people bother to analyze what these $$$ amounts actually mean. (And clearly a federal policy is tough here since $600/week might be the minimum to live in NYC, but it's above a whole swath of jobs in many other states.)

^ To be fair, you're still only accounting for the bonus and there is the actual unemployment insurance benefit as well. Additionally, you are indeed on the hook for both federal & state taxes for all of that, as it's still considered income.

I think it's more of an accumulation, plus people being unwilling to back down in the moment the argument happens, but agreeing over the next couple years. It's like the NFL/Goodell/Kaepernick - once they made their stance a few years ago they wouldn't back down, but they knew they were assholes as time went on and when this next chance came up Goodell gave the most stilted video of all time in support of BLM & "kneeling".

To be fair? I'm out!

You pay income taxes on unemployment benefits. Also have you looked up and seen how much health insurance is via COBRA? Family could easily be paying $1500-$2000. Something you aren't going to abandon during a pandemic.

Sure there are situations where college kids collect this who don't really need to be looking for a job. But if your job is supporting a family, are you really going to ride out unemployment and just assume a job will be ready for you on August 1? I doubt it and the fact so many people are going back to work shows it.

Also a huge part of the unemployment, PPP, EIDL and other stuff was to make it so people didn't have to rush back to work right away during a pandemic. We want people staying home.

Source?

A handful of states have income tax exemptions and there are the 7 or 8 states that have no state income tax, but unemployment is considered taxable in the vast majority of states. Maybe you are thinking of Medicare and Social Security being withheld.

My apologies on not knowing how unemployment benefits are taxed ;)

And yes, I pointed out that it wouldn't make sense for someone with a family depending on them to do it. But a large portion of the economy where $600/week starts turning things into a real fiscal choice is single and young. Or older & dumb or addicted to something. That makes me an asshole to say, and our economy doesn't depend on them, but to an extent our society depends on that underclass taking lower paying jobs. We've all played Banished, or whatever else where you pay certain jobs $X & watch the fallout?

Well shit, I'd be okay with a gradually implemented national $15/hour minimum wage or more, but that wasn't voted in. And now we've thrown a wrench where people can get the equivalent of $15/hour for a full work week without actually working (for the short term). That's not an easy sell to people outside of the largest, highest COLA cities.