
The coronavirus is outlasting the stimulus - throwaway888abc
https://www.axios.com/the-coronavirus-is-outlasting-the-stimulus-5ededaa6-235d-4693-8288-0d85231220c7.html
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newhotelowner
The whole thing is fucked up.

I have to bring back every single employee to convert my PPP loan to grant and
also, use it within 8 weeks. None of them want to come back, and if they don't
come back they will be out of a job and they won't get unemployment.

But the business is dead. So as soon as 8 weeks are up, I will have to layoff
again.

Only 4 out of 10 employees that I laid off received unemployment. 3 were
denied. 3 didn't qualify.

They shouldn't have given an additional $600 to unemployed people. They should
have given $1200 per month for 2-3 months to everyone. That way everyone who
is employed is happy, and everyone is who is out of a job can survive. Anyone
who wants to quit their job and stay home should have an option.

I am not going to bring back 2 of my employees who are above 50. I don't want
them to risk their life for my business.

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xtiansimon
> "I have to bring back every single employee to convert my PPP loan to grant
> and also, use it within 8 weeks. None of them want to come back [...] But
> the business is dead."

There's no business, which means employees are paid to do nothing. And in
return, business owners get up to 25% of the grant for approved expenses.
That's the deal, and it's not a bad one.

I keep hearing phrase 'come back' in this context from business owners, and it
confuses me. No one has to physically return to the workplace to be paid from
this grant money.

Now, I have heard the stories about employees who 'receive more money on
unemployment' than when they were working, because of the additional $600/week
Cares Act benefit. With the PPP employees are paid the average of their weekly
pay (PPP stipulation), or more. These individuals may certainly not wish to
'come back'.

There is also the potential awkward situation for the employer, where they
have a reduced staff expected to perform some job each day. The PPP requires
you to return to 2019 levels of full-time employment. Now, you re-hire
furloughed employees, but they have no job to perform (because they can't do
it from home or something else). How is that fair?

I get it. There are some difficult issues here, but saying simply that
employees are just not wanting to come back is confusing the issues.

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vmchale
> Republican leadership has said it doesn’t plan to continue passing stopgap
> measures to replenish immediate aid. Instead, it wants the next bill to be
> more focused on ... reopening America.

So contingent on something completely impossible and foolhardy, all to appease
the ego of the worst man in the country?

~~~
root_axis
IMO, Trump is a horrifyingly terrible president but the desire to open things
up again is a serious concern for a lot of people who are out of work and have
bills piling up, it isn't just a Trump thing. What are they supposed to do? If
you have a mortgage and are out of work the stimulus checks are next to
worthless (in the sense that they just delay the inevitable by a couple
weeks). There is a point of desperation where the risk of getting sick feels
much more remote than the feeling of the walls closing in financially.

~~~
010101010101
The idea that simply opening things back up means economic activity returns to
normal is, in my opinion, ridiculous. People are going to continue to stay at
home. People are going to continue to get sick. Acting like there's an off-
switch for this that magically sets us back to a time where we're BaU that we
can flip solves nothing - without actual policy makers making new policy,
those people most affected will continue to be impacted in a huge way, but
political leadership has no interest, especially in the White House. We're on
a long, trying road, and the poor leadership is the _main_ reason.

~~~
root_axis
> _Acting like there 's an off-switch for this that magically sets us back to
> a time where we're BaU that we can flip solves nothings_

This is kind of a strawman argument though. I say "kind of" because yeah,
there are some crazies out there saying that the virus is a plot by the
government to crash the economy or some other insanity about 5g and bill gates
mind-control vaccines, however, this isn't what most leaders are saying, not
even Trump.

> _without actual policy makers making new policy_

Right... "a bill focused on reopening America" is literally "policy makers
making new policy". Whether or not those policies will effectively address the
issues at hand is another question entirely, but I don't think there is
anything unreasonable about ostensibly looking towards policies that could
start opening some things up.

> _We 're on a long, trying road, and the poor leadership is the _main_
> reason._

I'm in total agreement with you here and I think things are only going to get
worse once the elections are over and Trump doesn't feel any more re-election
pressure (yes, I'm assuming he'll win), but that's a separate issue from the
stated goal of trying to get people working again.

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dariusj18
I'm not sure what incentives congress has for passing policies for the
executive to follow, when the executive has shown it has no problem ignoring
the law and using funding passed in alternative ways.

~~~
root_axis
I agree, but bucking up against an uncooperative executive is preferable to
doing nothing and blaming it on the executive, that just plays right into
their narrative.

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taylodl
The coronavirus is outlasting our willingness to deal with it. It's not going
away - though it would be wonderful if it did. There are things we can do to
slow the spread of the virus even as we slowly open things back up but there
are a contingent of people absolutely refusing to wear face masks and when
asked to by the establishment they're visiting they've shot and killed the
agent asking. It doesn't help that our leaders aren't setting a good example
for others to follow. There are reasons the United States has endured 1/3 of
the worldwide coronavirus deaths while only having 1/20 of the worldwide
population. Is our national attention span really that short?

------
buboard
.

~~~
saiya-jin
Now imagine if they aren't so utterly incompetent as it may appear (well apart
from the top guy, he is truly hopeless through and through).

What kind of discussions/meetings/decisions could be happening behind the
closed doors? Interesting mind exercise, although we won't know the truth.

It seems to me a lot of folks are rather looking for a way to milk the system
and the common population at any cost, anytime. Fuck tomorrow. Fuck our kids
and their future. I sure hope my perception isn't correct.

