
Millions of U.S. Jobs to Be Lost for Years, IRS Projections Show - spy888
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-20/millions-of-u-s-jobs-to-be-lost-for-years-irs-projections-show
======
throw149102
What's going to _happen_ when these 37.2 million jobs are lost? Are these
people just going to starve on the streets? Do they have financial resources
that they didn't know they had? I find myself frustrated whenever reading
about the job losses because things are always phrased in the abstract, like
"The agency expects that $METRIC will be down 40% in the next decade." I don't
know what that means for the people who are actually going through this
catastrophe.

I also seriously question these sorts of projections, especially out as far as
a decade. There's so many variables and unknowns, and I'm not certain how the
IRS arrives at this conclusion, and it's not clear what assumptions they're
making in their projections.

What I really need is a recent comprehensive source on how COVID is affecting
the economy. Right now all the information is coming in piece-meal and I have
no idea what to make of it all.

~~~
poletopole
We’ll witness the birth of what I call the “Shadow Economy” evolve from the
reputation economy. Since companies can’t exist, they won’t. Instead workers
will find work where they don’t pay income or sales taxes which could be a
global federated crypto network. If you remove taxes from the equation and
replace them with what might be next generation smart contracts that work like
cash (offline) then really government will be the one out of a job. Credit
card processors and banks are already anticipating this future with their
recent crypto card standard. In the BLM riots my chase bank actually was
burned to the ground. There definitely is a vacuum to be filled and I think
most out of work just need a platform that works without trust.

~~~
randomdude402
Good luck convincing anybody that moving crypto through their bank is going to
enable them to avoid taxes.

Their has always been a shadow economy, and it runs on cash.

~~~
poletopole
I wasn’t implying anything nefarious by the term “shadow”, only that it stands
in the shadow of the reputation economy. I also meant that two outcomes might
exist: 1. Something like ether or 2. The banking system would corner the
market.

------
not_really
[https://outline.com/SsXtZq](https://outline.com/SsXtZq)

------
zxcvbn4038
They really painted themselves into a corner with the low interest rates,
though I was never convinced that quarter basis point adjustments really made
people magically withdraw money and go on a spending spree anyway. It always
seemed more like a “we did something” placebo. Could just as easily be a
ceremony where once a month the president goes to the treasury and pushes a
big “Fix economy” button or maybe he’ll push the “Ruin economy” button, cue
speculation and suspense.

~~~
imtringued
Interest rates can't fix a broken economy. Interest rates are like annoying
parents nagging you to get a job, they accelerate an existing trend. If there
are enough jobs then you will simply get a job earlier than you planned but
you were going to get that job eventually. If there are no jobs then the only
thing that changes is that your life is getting worse (=stagflation), not
better, because your parents start hating you more and more.

Of course the government can always create jobs out of thin air through
stimulation or a jobs program, but that's not the same thing as playing around
with interest rates.

------
peacefulhat
37.2 million less jobs seems crazy. What does that mean? That's not in line
with BLS data which has much smaller peak job loss and quick recovery

[https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12000000](https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12000000)

Maybe employees with multiple employers?

------
Fjolsvith
The crazy thing is that more jobs have come back than were created during the
previous administration's two terms.

