The US is struggling in many ways, but I can't help but think many other less fortunate nations are struggling even more. But the US doesn't show international news so you wouldn't really know unless you go looking for it.
[0]: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donations&busines...
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/el-salvador-inmates-c...
In India in particular, the lockdown has so far caused more misery than the virus itself:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/india-covid-19-lockdo...
...although it's an impossible equation, because letting it turn rampant would also cause death and destruction.
I mean, that's the point, right?
Heart surgery hurts more than chest pain, but it's intended to prevent the heart attack.
Answer: In the cities they chose to leave.
And the idea that mass lockdowns can stop the spread of virus is itself a radical, new idea that's never been tried, and which has its own cadre of experts saying it hasn't been working or is making little difference.
Given what we know now, extending a shelter-in-place order through all of May is catastrophic. It will likely trigger mass civil unrest. The virus just isn't that dangerous.
You probably could say "has not been tried recently", but mass quarantines has been tried since time immemorial.
And I think your second statement is false, preventive isolation en masse was practiced (to the extent possible) during bubonic plague.
But lockdowns during pandemics have been practiced occasionally, but always at the city level, due to the nature of governance during past pandemics. Famously Newton and Shakespeare did work during London lockdowns, and some Italian city states distributed fixed rations to peasants to help them stay at home.
What’s new isn’t preventative quarantines, what’s new is global travel and communication.
The heart surgeon is booked out for a few months. Avoid strenuous exercise until they're available to fix you.
I also forwarded it to my network - maybe this helps at least a little bit more in terms of donations.
People first started living in the Galapagos a long time ago, in the 1950s they consolidated everyone into the islands they live today. Interesting history for a place that you’d think was purely natural, but human civilization finds a way I suppose.
Surely they should just be put to sleep, no?
Following this we could say: As there are always young able people in need, why care for old or disabled people who doo not contribute to society and only cost society's money?
Why "donate" taxes for care facilities and such unnecessary stuff?
There is an island on which there are hungry people and hungry dogs. There is a limited pool of donor funds.
The fact that there are people asking for money for the dogs before all the people on that little island have full bellies is just sad.
The dogs will feel no pain from being put to sleep.
Nobody can, will, or wants to even suggest that the children be put to sleep. We will let the children suffer horrible pain before we ever even consider suggesting such a thing.
So every dollar spent on the starving dogs is a dollar that could have prevented some pain for the humans there. It would cost no money and no pain to put the dogs to sleep and ease the pain of some children.
So stop trying to bring the rest of the world into this to win the argument. This is a localised problem on one island, and every dollar spent there should be spent on reducing harm.
A lot of charity donation is based on feelings rather than calculations about saved lives. Otherwise there would only be one charity, and it'd be distributing malaria nets and deworming tablets in Africa.
In my experience, if someone donates $20 to animals in response to lowpro's post, that's not money subtracted from their fixed charity budget that would otherwise have gone to humans. That's money subtracted from their household budget, that otherwise would have been spent on hobbies and bills. People who have fixed charity budgets simply don't donate from them in response to social media posts.
> Nobody can, will, or wants to even suggest that the children be put to sleep. We will let the children suffer horrible pain before we ever even consider suggesting such a thing.
Sounds like the proper solution is to convince people that putting kits to sleep is OK, then...
(Not really, but it does seem to follow from your statements)
You're operating on the assumption that the people with the means to donate prioritize human life over a dog's life, which isn't always the case.
By extension of your statement: Given that there are always people starving somewhere on Earth at all other points in time too, isn't it immoral to feed pets at all? They should be put down and that food should go to people! Dog food in general is immoral, because it could instead be given to someone starving somewhere.
There are many criteria you could use for making such ranking of problems (a popular one is minimizing dollars per lives saved, or dollars per QALY added). Living in a free society means people are free to decide how much (if anything all) they want to spend on charitable causes, and on which ones. But in one's individual spending, it's worth to think about how to get maximum "bang for your buck", in terms of alleviating suffering.
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[0] - By coincidence, this is on the front page right now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22993486.
And the people running this shelter, knowing that donor funds are limited, are asking for it to be spent on keeping unwanted dogs alive when there are people starving. It's more humane to put the dogs to sleep. They will feel no pain.
But nobody is going to even begin to consider putting the children to sleep are they? Those kids are going to suffer badly, and you're here arguing that the dogs are more important?
These are unprecedented times, and you can't just waste money.
Exactly. Most of my old team is simply floating on what savings they had, partner's salaries and any money from the family funds we are offered (small grants of $1200 depending on need and availability for FT employees). Some don't qualify for unemployment, as they're just furloughed waiting for a re-open date, or are still dependents and got screwed out of the $1200 checks sent out.
I stepped down from my role as a chef in late January to focus on SpaceX interview(s) and had budgeted accordingly and was ok with passive income sources, but those dried up as the Market tanked, so I had to get really creative this month to make ends-meet because I thought after my interview in February I'd be employed by May. My landlord has made it clear he still expects payment on the 1st, which made me ask serious questions about my current situation.
Ultimately, I have realized I have to go back to tech now as these past years in culinary to get to this point have been incredibly financially precarious, so I took some refresher classes on Coursera and sent out some CVs.
I've heard back from one potential employer so hopefully that pans out as our stay at home requirement is being lifted at the end of this month in CO. My family in CA is still required to stay at home and less than half can work remotely so its putting a strain on things.
Oprah has it better than me right now. But we both have it way better than my hairdresser (who knows if her salon will survive). And all three of us have it better than a Silicon Valley janitor.
I'm filled every day with deep, deep sadness for everyone whose refrigerators are running out with their bank account at zero.
(Though I have no insight into whether or not they've actually followed through on these public commitments).
It also includes all reception and building security staff, even though they are employees of the building management, and not employed by us.
I hope more people know that SV startups, and especially unicorns, are really leading by example in their treatment of the low-wage service workers and contractors that work in their offices.
Various tech companies
Communicating that "we're all in this together" is as effective as a giving "like" to the Facebook page of a person dying from cancer raising money for their treatment.
The person who hits that "like" surely feels better about themselves and sees social media as a facilitator of this effortless moral redemption.
PS: The individuals building these systems are aware of this.
* Essential workers (who make less) required to work and get infected at higher rates, both at work and from their essential worker housemates.
* We permit anyone (even non-essential workers) to hire a nanny, but let no one drop their kid off at a friend's house.
* Deep pocketed businesses like Broadcom can just declare themselves an essential business and mandate employees perfectly capable of working from home come into the office.
Honest question: has anyone published infection rates by occupation? Obviously medical staff reusing face masks in NYC are more likely to contract it, but I'm not as sure about grocery store workers, delivery drivers, pickers at Amazon, etc. Some essential workers in food production (think farmers) are probably pretty low-risk.
This is hyperbole. The KGB isn't going to come and arrest you if you do so.
I'm not saying that I agree with those politicians.
It seems like the concern for lower income people runs the gamut from them not being able to make it to them living high on the benefits hog.
Edit: It's not just politicians-- similar stories are on CNBC: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/22/she-got-a-paycheck-protectio...
Pointing out that this creates a disincentive to return to work isn’t accusing anyone of “living high in the benefits hog.” It’s not that we’re talking about a ton of money. It’s that we do need most of the country to return to work eventually. And if even white collar workers making $60,000 a year are getting paid more in unemployment, that is a pickle we’re going to have to resolve at some point.
Do you really think not enough people working belongs near the top of our list of concerns at the moment? I have heard this line from every conservative I've talked to about this, and it just seems like missing the forest for the trees. On the long list of systemic problems this period and our response to it is in danger of creating, this seems like it belongs on the list, but not close enough to the top to be worth the time discussing it. I'm a lot more worried about the incentives we're manipulating for businesses and investors than for unemployed people.
But take a hypothetical continuum of unemployment benefits. At which point will your thesis that "people want to work but are unable" switch to "people aren't working because they're being paid way more to not work? The switch will probably be binary at the individual level but will look like a continuum when looking at the population level.
Individuals will of course respond differently depend on the specific contexts of their life. I think in the end a quantity that will matter will be the ratio of unemployment benefits to old job salary. Other factors such as job satisfaction in previous job will contribute to the variance.
The real problem we're going to have is people struggling to find jobs as demand ramps back up slowly in fits and starts. This whole conversation is an attempt to portray those struggling people as the problem. It is indirection, like in a magic trick. And the pedantic "well actually"s are falling for the trap.
It's a real bummer because it's definitely going to work, which is going to cause us to underinvest in unemployment insurance over time, which is going to make this even more painful than it was already going to be. It would just be nice if people could see that they're being played.
Yes. Or something close to it:
https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-would-receive-2000...
"The Emergency Money for the People Act, introduced by Reps. Tim Ryan and Ro Khanna, would give $2,000 a month to Americans over the age of 16 who make less than $130,000 a year."
"The payments would continue for at least six months and would last until unemployment falls to pre-coronavirus levels."
That would probably only cost a few trillion dollars. It'll take a decade to get back to pre-virus unemployment levels, and they know that. It took nearly a decade to get to those super low unemployment levels after the great recession, which was not nearly so bad as this situation.
Well, it was a horrible way for the US to get to experiment with a wide-scale UBI system and create a viable model. One that was previously thought to be unfathomable, but honestly I'll take it.
And maybe because of my age, but 2008 was way worse than this. This doesn't seem like it will create waves of lost generations, for startes no one is being evicted from their Homes (yet) and no eviction systems are in place in many parts of the US.
> The bill comes as the IRS is about to begin mailing out checks approved by the recent COVID-19 relief package. Those will come printed with President Donald Trump's name on them, it was revealed this week.
Lets see what we learn from this, I'm personally cautiously optimistic on a Human level if this is the step being proposed. I'm just having a hard time internalizing how this is all being done while a clown like Trump is in office... I mean if this Andrew Yang, of course, maybe even Sanders, but Trump?!
So someone on unemployment is only "making" up to $26K, then they're SOL.
Arguably, this is a positive unintended consequence of the act in this situation.
Sure it is, plus it's a lie since unemployment requires active job search and taking offered employment, except for temporary layoff where you position is retained, where it still requires return to work when the employer ends the temporary layoff. You cannot choose to stay out of work and draw unemployment, so it cannot create incentives to do so.
Im a proponent of UBI, but we don't do ourselves any favors by insisting that the current system isnt exploitable.
I'm past the point of annoyance or despair. I've gotten used to the fact that not only do governments do whatever they want, but people like authoritarian action and don't care about externalities.
The best i can do in this situation is get a loan holiday for my mortage from my bank. But i dont get anything for free, i will need to pay it back, plus interest.
The small and medium guys are taking the big hits. The big guys are liquidating to protect investors. And everyone in between is fighting over the scraps.
I believe in karma. When i say we are in this all together, i mean from a civilization perspective, if only 5% of the worlds population has cash at the end of this, that cash wont mean much. Entire nations wont just fade away. Something has to give.
It will be interesting to see how it actually plays out (and now long it lasts) but it seems pretty practical, given the situation.
I also run a business in Seattle. Finding a new tenant will be no sweat at all even during the COVID times.
So how is my budget?
* I know that there will be a time gap between being able to apply for unemployment and receiving it. The unemployment systems in the US are still overwhelmed.
* Since my wife is on my health insurance plan, COBRA is going to be very expensive.
* We moved recently for my job, so a lot of the savings we had are already gone.
We have some runway, but no where near enough to feel safe. We are one of those edge cases where we took a risk, it paid off and life was great, but it didn't last long enough for us save up again so things are looking grim. So finally...
> Yet when I read Redditors talk about quarantine, you'd think everyone in the world was getting paid time off to play Animal Crossing at home or they live at mom's house rent-free. And it seems like it's this crowd that's likely to be pushing for staying in lockdown with no end in sight.
We both still are 100% for maintaining the quarantine. No we are not living some relaxing lifestyle at home. I've been quite stressed out. However, I also know that I would never forgive myself if I contributed to breaking quarantine early and that caused a chain reaction of hospitals to be overrun again and leading to my parents, a relative, or an old friend to die because they could not get the proper treatment.
There is a lot I want to rant about, but rather than that, I would like to leave these thoughts:
Stop thinking of the solution as being so black and white. Lifting the quarantine isn't the only way to help everyone who has been impacted. For example, why not have the same government bodies that enacted the quarantine do something just as drastic to save those who were impacted? What other solutions are out there?
Also, if lifting the quarantine leads to more deaths, then remember that there is an economic impact there too. Have you ever paid for a funeral? I have and at a young age too. It burned a hole in my savings. That set me back several years in saving and investing in myself. Imagine doing the same to the generation of young adults whose parents are in the risk factor group. Far too many of the comments I read, even on HN, are seeing things only through the lens of what politicians say. Outside of compiling raw statistics, I've seen very little independent thought on how to solve the current problems in society.
FWIW, SF Fire CU in the bay area has credit cards that charge 7.5% rather than the 25%-ish at Capital One or Citi.
Hope this helps in some tiny way.
Of course before going this route, check with a reputable source.
I’ve been on COBRA twice before using the 60 day “trick” due to recession related lay-offs. Luckily, the previous times I didn’t have cash flow issues, but I did learn that to get reimbursed once you opt-in and pay those back months can take many, many weeks. So while it may seem like you possibly extending your cash flow, you are actually playing a risky game of chance. Cash flow will end up being far worse off if you get unlucky.
I know I’ve replied more than once in this thread shooting down suggestions, but do know that I appreciate the advice. I’ve just lived life having quite a few unlucky events at bad times, so I’ve learned to always consider how worse off things can be for others.
What I was hoping for with my post was to solicit actual introspection and suggestions for alternative fixes that the HN community could iterate on. So please, I hope people will focus on that instead of my situation. Thank you.
https://www.cms.gov/CCIIO/Programs-and-Initiatives/Other-Ins...
Instead of COBRA, can you get on an Obamacare ACA plan? That might be much cheaper.
Pro-tip:. If you pay out of pocket for your regular doctor (maybe tell then your situation and work out a deal), you can get Medical to pay for the prescription (verify before trying).
Obamacare IS Medical (aka Medicaid)
Medicaid is called MediCal, except persons in the US illegally can get it, too.
If you pay out of pocket for your regular doctor... you can get Medical to pay for the prescription
edit: I'm not sure there's any grace period at all with the ACA. You have 60 days to sign up, but unlike COBRA, I don't see any evidence you can start using the insurance without paying for it first, which is the nice thing about the COBRA grace period.
https://www.healthcare.gov/coverage-outside-open-enrollment/...
https://www.coveredca.com/individuals-and-families/getting-c...
I don't see any evidence you can start using the insurance without paying for it first,
How does that work if you've suffered a catastrophic injury and you're not well enough to sign up until after you've been treated in the hospital for several days?
It's similar, but it doesn't sound like the COBRA thing, where you have the option to retroactively extend your employer's coverage, or not, for a couple of months and you can still visit the hospital the same as you always did (or not) because of the payment and notification grace period. If it turns out you didn't need the insurance, you don't need to pay for it.
Don’t fill out cobra paperwork to day 59
If not sick or total bills less than 2 months cobra payments, decline cobra.
If sick and total bills > 2 months cobra payments, decide to accept coverage.
Used this for like 5 job hops. Never had to opt in, but it seemed fine. Confirmed with HR several times that it would work as I said.
After 2 months it starts to get gross. Likely want to get an emergency only plan.
This is the kind of mental gymnastics that would be completely avoided if we had even the most basic of universal coverage.
In many parts of the US it is time to start cautiously reopening more parts of the economy, exactly as is occurring now in a dozen European countries. The main impediment to that is our testing rate, which still lags other Western nations that are easing lockdowns.
I was laid off last year from a non-tech job and at the time, had savings and unemployment to not worry about paying $1800 for rent plus reduced additional expenses for a respectable while (without losing everything) but it's a very different story now.
Since COVID, my landlord said he could let me defer payments for a few months, but honestly that’s not helpful at all since I’ll have to pay in full eventually.
I previously felt relatively comfortable with my opportunities to find new employment in marketing or a career switch to product management. But now, cash is low and what few jobs are available are flooded with applications and high competition from all the layoffs. I can't even get a food delivery gig because they have so many applications.
It could be worse, but my wallet and savings are taking a serious beating and probably will for quite a while.
So if anyone has ANY marketing or PM needs or questions......... Say hi, email in bio! Happy to connect at the very least.
Wouldn't this be a self-selecting population? or is everyone whether rich or poor, good circumstances or bad online?
Seems like over last 50 years many people had been brainwashed to believe it is so.
But people are not the largest, quickest or most dangareous species on the planet. Our strongest point had been communicating and working together toward common goals, creating the society and taking care of each other.
Saddly in last 50 years this darwinistic vision of getting ahead at all cost at the expense of the others prevailed.
Edit: People downvoting me are proving my point about being naive. I’m giving my input as someone who is in a much different position than most of the privileged commenters here. Feel free to ignore it, it just grows my disdain for the stereotypical tech worker, a well-paid sheep that’s never faced any kind of hardship yet thinks he knows what’s best for people who have.
Not everyone fits into a perfect little box of “job” or “no job.” I personally am an independent contractor who’s been burning through (minimal) savings while building a startup that doesn’t exist yet. I’m eligible for the $1200 check, but I have no idea where it is and the IRS website is a blackhole. I haven’t tried for the PPP loan yet but it’s not helpful.
UI benefits table https://www.edd.ca.gov/pdf_pub_ctr/de1101bt5.pdf
Luck might play a role in whether you got a good job, but saving money is mostly a product of willpower.
I would not blame them if they had to start stealing from supermarkets
Would you blame them if they stole $15/pound steak instead of $0.20/pound bags of flour? Because few people steal bags of flour--that is, few people steal food for purposes of preventing starvation. It's mostly driven by the same impulse as any other form of stealing.
People dont do bad things because they want to be bad or lazy. Thats Nixon era properganda used marginalise the anti-war hippies in favour of the Military Industrial Complex.
Conversatives will trumpet this till the cows come home while simultatiously gouging the govenrment with there large businiess for subsidies, discounts, monopolistic laws, on everything they do.
You could pay entire swaths of your population unemployment, or you could subsidies the creation of a new oil processing facility and let that company then employ the population. When you subsidise big buisness, that money goes straight into family trusts. When you subsidise people directly, that money goes straight back into the community.
As soon as u pay people a basic income, they have the chance todo what they want in life. People dont want to steal. They only start doing that once they are disenfrancised and already marginalised.
We’ve continued paying our housekeepers and Montessori throughout all of this; it sounds like most of our community has been doing the same, based on emails from management, and chatter on Nextdoor. But this will vary widely depending on the particular community. Just like when a storm hits, the communities which are already less fortunate will typically get hit the hardest.
And then of course, the local businesses. When the tide recedes, I really don’t know how many of our favorite shops and cafes will still be there. Those folks are sitting on edge right now.
The social media feeds are going to be self-selecting for bored, single, young people. Anyone taking care of young kids at home are too busy looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Kindergarten Cop” to be posting very much right now.
No free ride for the landlord class. Cancel rent!
This is not true:
https://www.state.nj.us/dobi/covid/mortgagerelief.html
>Do I still need to pay my mortgage?
>Yes.
>Will I have to make up the mortgage payments at the end of the 90-day grace period?
>Yes, these mortgage payments will need to be made up by consumers. The Department has requested that forbearance payments be added to and made at the end of the life of the loan. However, consumers should contact the institution that services their home loan to understand the specific programs and terms available to them.
The Fed keeps lowering the thresholds (and they'll end up doing a lot more than that in the coming months; most of this won't be short-term credit, they'll switch it to long-term out of necessity):
"Fed expands muni-debt program to cover smaller cities, counties"
"The Federal Reserve expanded the scope and duration of the Municipal Liquidity Facility, a $500 billion emergency lending program aimed at providing short-term credit to state and local governments as they endure the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. The U.S. central bank lowered the population thresholds under which counties and cities would be eligible to sell short-term debt to the facility. The new levels are at least 500,000 for counties and 250,000 for cities, down from 2 million and 1 million."
https://www.bondbuyer.com/articles/fed-expands-muni-debt-pro...
Real estate is all about location.
Major cities have a housing shortage and will continue to be able to find some tenants. Rent is likely to go down or stabilize for some time.
Small town will be decimated. All the jobs that are disappearing are not coming back, people will have no money for rent and there are no other tenants immigrating in.
My extended family is heavily dependent on commercial real estate. My dad is the least (relatively) successful/smallest of the family. He's an agent (and small owner). At the end of 2019 helped facilitate a HUGE __ insert a top firm __ reit deal; $10 digits in a small ish state. Literally the top of the market. There's a reason his friend who sold that insane Sq Ft was already super wealthy. The small buildings my dad owns sounds like many can't pay rent.
I personally hedged a bit and including put REIT exposure. But despite having a super pessimistic view on the economy, seeing losses now is scary and I'm thinking about closing (i did move my main savings into much safer territory before the biggest drop and govt said they will buy unlimited bonds/debt..). That idiom the market can remain irrational longer comes to mind
I talked to my neighbor on Sunday. She is a cleaner working for a subcontractor cleaning schools. She wasn't able to work for 9 weeks (first there were holidays, then Corona stay at home rules). She isn't being paid and her boss does not go through the official process of getting government subsidiaries for her. She is just being left hanging.
Yeah her boss is an ale. It would cost a little bit of time and get all his employees 60% of their net income. He just isn't doing it.
Her sons earn okayish - so they help her out. And we do neighborly community help. Non the less. People left and right are being left behind. Even with government interventions in place.
But commercial evictions are still done judicially in CA unlike some other places, and at least in Alameda county the ability of the business to repay is factored in
The prices are a lot cheaper in a lot of US metros than the tech centers.
But can anyone share what it's like to not be in either of these situations? How are your rent lords handling things?
I live abroad in a cheap country so I can handle zero income, but I wouldn't be able to last long if rent was $2000+/mo instead of the <$200/mo I currently pay.
Yet when I read Redditors talk about quarantine, you'd think everyone in the world was getting paid time off to play Animal Crossing at home or they live at mom's house rent-free. And it seems like it's this crowd that's likely to be pushing for staying in lockdown with no end in sight.