
U.S. Labor Department allows unemployment benefits for coronavirus - djsumdog
https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-economy-labor/u-s-labor-department-allows-unemployment-benefits-for-coronavirus-idUSW1N29L03G
======
thrill
You know what else would help? Since the risk curve bends sharply upward at
age 60, immediately allow anyone to start drawing full social security
payments at age 60, without any sort of penalty. Those companies that value
their older workers would now be in the position of _making_ work-from-home a
full-fledged option, because the bargaining power would shift to where it
belongs - the worker.

~~~
zymhan
That would both put a massive strain on the Social Security trust and not
pressure employers at all, since they'd likely be happy to have the most
expensive employees retire early.

~~~
thrill
If we can afford a $1.5 trillion injection into the markets, then we can
afford moving the SS retirement age to 60 where the most vulnerable exist.

~~~
QuesnayJr
The $1.5 trillion injection doesn't actually cost any money. The Fed is making
short-term fully-collateralized loans.

~~~
claudeganon
Yes, just like how poor people can get 1.5 trillion in subsidized payday loans
to cover the gap between pay checks...oh wait.

It’s absolutely a bailout.

~~~
ivalm
Payday loans are generally not overnight and are typically not collateralized;
they are in fact very risky.

Repo's are overnight borrowing collateralized by the US Treasuries. Basically
it is borrowing to maintain capitalization requirements in these high
volatility times. From the perspective of the US government they have
literally 0 risk (you are guaranteed to get back either USD denominated money
or US treasury).

~~~
SilasX
If you want to use that analogy ...

You should compare it to a payday loan that _is_ collateralized [1]. And then
where the collateral happens to be insufficient because a glut of that item
just came on the market (analogous to the sudden rush of banks needing to
convert their Treasurys to cash).

For the ordinary person, "Sorry, can't help you, you just have to deal with
the fact that everyone else is selling that product too and so it doesn't
provide the value you want and you have to take a big loss or an interest rate
corresponding to higher risk."

For banks, "Omg! You can't sell your bonds at par because everyone else is
trying to sell before maturity? You poor thing, let me buy them up for you
with new money!"

[1] Sometimes referred to as "title loans", as you might e.g. put up your
(remaining equity in your) car as the collateral.

~~~
ivalm
Except for they are not using random bonds, they are using Treasuries. This
isn't random toxic debt, it's the debt of the US government to itself. More
akin to "if banks are insolvent this ensures a certain degree of quantitative
easing", which is a good thing since we are undershooting our inflation
targets as is.

~~~
SilasX
They’re not technically toxic debt, but the market definitely prefers cash
now, so they’re unwanted just the same.

~~~
QuesnayJr
If they were unwanted, the 30 day interest rate would spike, but it hasn't.
This is purely a move to provide liquidity, which is the essential job of the
Fed.

~~~
QuesnayJr
What's the story here? Banks are buying 30-day bonds so they can borrow
overnight with the Fed? They can only borrow up to the amount of the bond, so
why don't they just... use the money directly rather than in this roundabout
fashion.

If the Fed wants to keep the 30-day interest rate down, they can just buy the
bonds directly themselves. They don't need to wait for the banks to buy the
bonds and then repo them.

~~~
ivalm
They are buying treasury and selling a treasury future, which nets them some
premium. They then fulfill overnight capitalization requirements with the very
same treasuries. Future premiums are higher than overnight lending rate.

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oxymoran
Hopefully all the states implement this as it would help immensely at least in
theory. I’d prefer an emergency temporary UBI but bureaucrats gotta
bureaucrat.

~~~
lukifer
Though it's obviously a long-shot, Tulsi Gabbard just introduced a UBI
COVID-19 relief bill:
[https://gabbard.house.gov/sites/gabbard.house.gov/files/docu...](https://gabbard.house.gov/sites/gabbard.house.gov/files/documents/GABBAR_185_xml.pdf)

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vsareto
I bailed on a job just before all of this started because we weren't doing any
work for 3 months and I got bored. Biggest mistake ever.

~~~
throw51319
You got bored of collecting an easy paycheck? But do you think tech hiring
will really slow down? I feel like there is just too much momentum in the
area. We are the force multipliers.

~~~
vsareto
Yeah I had just switched to pentesting, was eager to get started. Killed some
passion.

Believe me, I'd still be collecting it if I knew this was going to happen.

>But do you think tech hiring will really slow down?

We should be good but these are extraordinary times.

~~~
throw51319
Did you have a solid safety net when you bailed? I considered doing the same a
year or so ago. I don't think this is a systemic problem like 2008... so I
don't see how it kills off viable tech projects. If you are top 20% skills you
will be fine. It's just going to kill off overleveraged entities, and also
kill off non-viable business models.

~~~
vsareto
>Did you have a solid safety net when you bailed?

Yeah, took cash positions before leaving.

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pkaye
Also California just waived the waiting period for unemployment benefits and
short term disability as a result of Covid19.

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epicureanideal
I wonder if people who don't have regular jobs would be able to use these
services in any way? As far as I know, self employed people don't qualify for
these for example. I'm not an expert, but that's what it looked like last time
I checked.

~~~
jeh993
Being self-employed and having lost a lot of business due to the cancellation
of conferences and sporting events, I've looked into it and as far as I am
aware, I am not eligible for any sort of unemployment benefit.

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ohithereyou
If COVID-19 digs in deep in the US then there is going to be a
transformational change in how US citizens think about work, travel,
entertainment, security, and the relationship between US citizens and their
government. All of these aspects are intertwined:

Work: More people will work more time from home and many firms will switch to
virtually full time remote with limited physical gathering. This will decrease
the cost of office rents and alter the work/life balance. It will affect wages
because people can live outside of city centers and still work so companies
will pay less. We may be on the cusp of US government guaranteed sick leave.

Travel: People will, for the short term, do less travel for pleasure, but the
big impact, long term, business trips will decrease. More and more business
meetings will be replaced with voice and video conferencing. There was no big
driver other than some cost reduction here, but now safety and security will
be the big drivers here. Global pandemic concerns (prevention, containment)
will complicate travel to varying degrees, and in a way that most US citizens
aren't used to - it will affect interstate travel, not just trans-national
travel.

Entertainment: Many of the sports that have been deferred or canceled will
likely be replaced with other forms of entertainment that can be viewed on
television or the Internet. Fewer people will go to live performances, both
because they can't (cancelled by the government) and reluctant to after COVID
clears. This will affect service workers - where most of the lesser skilled
jobs have been created in the last three decades.

Security: Security will no longer be seen as just a physical access control
concern. Business has been preparing over the last two decades for the
eventuality of global pandemic - now they can put those plans into action, and
the impacts of them will cascade into personal lives. US citizens will be
demanding more from their government in disaster preparedness on pandemics -
it will affect travel.

All of these tie into how US citizens see their relationship with their
government, and what they demand from it.

~~~
smacktoward
_> Entertainment: Many of the sports that have been deferred or canceled will
likely be replaced with other forms of entertainment that can be viewed on
television or the Internet. Fewer people will go to live performances, both
because they can't (cancelled by the government) and reluctant to after COVID
clears._

My guess is that you're overstating the long-term effect on this front. People
like leaving the house; people like gathering with other people; people have
liked these things for as long as there have _been_ people. They're not going
to stop liking them because they've been stuck alone indoors for a couple of
months. Enforced abstinence for a while may even _increase_ demand for social
entertainment, once the dust settles -- "you don't know what you've got until
it's gone," etc.

~~~
Apocryphon
Not to mention, people can still go to low-density venues outside. I wonder if
both neighborhood parks and county/state/national parks will experience higher
rates of attendance.

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gentleman11
Helpful, but not much good if somebody was coincidentally between jobs before
this started. I bet not a lot of hiring is going in (although the linkedin
recruiter spam hasn’t stopped)

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batmaniam
So where can one apply?

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black_puppydog
One of my podcasts recently said something that I found very fitting:
Americans really love themselves some socialism when they get it.

~~~
djsumdog
Most people don't even remotely understand what socialism is. Every public
road, every interstate, every subsidized city train/bus system, every public
park, every police department, every fire department, the CDC, the FDA, the
EPA .. they are ALL examples of socialism.

You cannot have a high income country without a high level of socialism.
Socialism is simply the State providing services for its people.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism)
:

> Socialism is a political, social and economic philosophy encompassing a
> range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of
> the means of production and workers' self-management of enterprises.

The likes of police and fire departments in the US are an example of _not_
socialism. Most of what they need for their operations (cars, radios,
buildings, etc.) are produced by private industry. The workers at the CDC and
the FDA don't own it, its management and policies are chosen by politicians
and voters (and lobbyists) rather than the workers.

Actual socialism doesn't even require government involvement. A worker-owned
collective is a socialist enterprise. But the MTA and the US Department of
Transportation are not examples of that.

