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Posted

To put it in perspective, we could have given the 100M “high risk” Americans 20k this year (enough for food and shelter, don’t come outside) and still had $1T for medical system fortifications (this is an actually insane amount of money) for the same cost as the $3.1T in stimulus bills we’ve wasted. It’s insane.
extent.


Even if you threw all the money at healthcare, the fact of the matter is there is not enough doctors and nurses in our country (and that was before the pandemic). It still takes 4 years to make a medical resident (assuming they have their bachelor's degree), and an additional 2-4 years to make them a doctor who doesn't require supervision. It takes 2 years to make a registered nurse, though many places won't hire an RN if they don't have a BSN (4 year degree), even though they both have the same license and can do all of the same procedures and care.

Sure, you could buy more equipment, assuming the supply chain could accommodate a surge in demand.

Also, you can't just tell the high risk to stay home without an economic impact. Maybe the elderly, but anyone with other risk factors but younger are out and working. Maybe they can telework, maybe not. If they work for a smaller company, that absence will be felt, and that person would likely be replaced by a new hire (if there's another person available, since a people staying home on quarantine means there will be competition for workers). Or the company reorganizes and eliminates that position. What happens to the person that was allowed to quarantine post pandemic? Their job is now gone, and businesses have gotten more efficient.

It also doesn't fully solve the exposure problem. If one person in the household is high risk and the other isn't, you still have someone going out into public and risks bringing it home with them. Yes, there's some lower risk if that high-person can stay home, but it hasn't eliminated it for them, especially if things like masks and social distancing aren't in place.
Posted
3 hours ago, VMFA187 said:

I never said its not "real." It is a minor nuisance to the vast majority of people and a real threat to a very small population, who are unfortunately already prone to dying. But state and local governments, mainly those led by democratic leaders, for whatever reason, are causing it to be much more than a nuisance to the entire population with pretty much only negative results. 

Go fuck yourself.

I have no underlying health concerns and it nearly KILLED me and I can assure you prior I was not already prone to dying.  Idiots like you make me want to vomit...truly a clueless fuckwit.  Two of my immediate family members were thankfully released from the hospital yesterday after receiving all possible therapeutics and one being given last rites. 

I am all for keeping things open and using mitigation measures to protect those at great risk but saying this is a nuisance is fucking ignorant.  There is a lot we simply don't understand especially as it related to certain blood types. 

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Posted

Over 70 aunt in nursing home, Covid positive, "recovered", administered vaccine and immediately experienced multiple seizures over several days.....  there are indeed ALOT of unknowns 

Posted
15 minutes ago, ClearedHot said:

Go fuck yourself.

I have no underlying health concerns and it nearly KILLED me and I can assure you prior I was not already prone to dying.  Idiots like you make me want to vomit...truly a clueless fuckwit.  Two of my immediate family members were thankfully released from the hospital yesterday after receiving all possible therapeutics and one being given last rites. 

I am all for keeping things open and using mitigation measures to protect those at great risk but saying this is a nuisance is fucking ignorant.  There is a lot we simply don't understand especially as it related to certain blood types. 

This. I've lost two friends so far from it, both pilots with no underlying health concerns. One of them was in his early 40s and left behind a wife and two teenage daughters. My uncle somehow survived the ICU last week and is recovering. This is after my aunt came home and found him sitting in a chair with blue lips and she could hear him breathe before seeing him. Glad you're here!

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Posted

@VMFA187 Like I had previous mentioned, I originally wrote an angrier post but deleted it and tried again. Just another data point to add: I lost my grandpa and great-aunt to COVID, and my mom and I both unfortunately picked up the virus attending the funeral. Hopefully you're keeping a running list of all the folks here who have loved ones who died so you can, ya know, update your worldview.

Posted (edited)

Even if it's not killing a high enough amount of folks to warrant concern by VMFA and the like, it is destroying our economy along with our healthcare system.  Wife had a friend who had a stroke, she had to be flown by airplane 4 hours north of the major city we live in to one of the few remaining ICU beds in the state.  Our healthcare workers have been doing this for 9+ months now.  It's not sustainable.  What's going to give first?  The denial of raw data and science is mind boggling.  

Our school district has been trying its hardest to stay open as much as possible.  The city district hasn't been in person since early summer.  We are in person a couple times a week and even that wasn't sustainable due to teachers/students contracting it outside of school and forcing quarantine measures and class shutdowns.  My kid hasn't talked to another teenager in the flesh since before christmas break.  

 

We're proper fucked.  

Edited by uhhello
Posted
2 hours ago, jazzdude said:

 


Even if you threw all the money at healthcare, the fact of the matter is there is not enough doctors and nurses in our country (and that was before the pandemic). It still takes 4 years to make a medical resident (assuming they have their bachelor's degree), and an additional 2-4 years to make them a doctor who doesn't require supervision. It takes 2 years to make a registered nurse, though many places won't hire an RN if they don't have a BSN (4 year degree), even though they both have the same license and can do all of the same procedures and care.

Sure, you could buy more equipment, assuming the supply chain could accommodate a surge in demand.

Also, you can't just tell the high risk to stay home without an economic impact. Maybe the elderly, but anyone with other risk factors but younger are out and working. Maybe they can telework, maybe not. If they work for a smaller company, that absence will be felt, and that person would likely be replaced by a new hire (if there's another person available, since a people staying home on quarantine means there will be competition for workers). Or the company reorganizes and eliminates that position. What happens to the person that was allowed to quarantine post pandemic? Their job is now gone, and businesses have gotten more efficient.

It also doesn't fully solve the exposure problem. If one person in the household is high risk and the other isn't, you still have someone going out into public and risks bringing it home with them. Yes, there's some lower risk if that high-person can stay home, but it hasn't eliminated it for them, especially if things like masks and social distancing aren't in place.

 

This is an interesting discussion, and, just as a reminder, it’s all a hypothetical policy.


I think a lot of your points are more a problem of tradition than anything else. I think there were many ways to think outside of the box. And this is coming from someone who believed in lockdowns and still trusts the science. I just don’t know if the current plan (threats of lockdown) is tenable in American culture. Lockdowns, when followed, work fine. But lockdowns in reality don’t work due to a multitude of sociological factors.

For example, if we had implemented a strong national health jobs/retraining system (perhaps bolstered by a trillion dollars), maybe we could have rapidly trained a surplus of low risk, unemployed people to be “respiratory techs.” That could reduce load on docs and nurses. Oh and since it’s an unprecedented emergency, let’s not arbitrarily require that training to be 1-2 years. Desperate times call for appropriate risk acceptance IMO, so let’s make it a ~6 week, intensive certification. I am absolutely sure there is something we could have done as a nation to respond to this from a job perspective to reduce the strain on the Manning side of the healthcare system. 

And I agree that this solution wouldn’t 100% solve the problem, but 100% is too lofty of a goal. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. With policy like this, you could probably hit the 69% solution and at least benefit a bigger portion of society while preserving liberty and life for those that aren’t as affected.

And to your point about the high risk person that would lose their job under this hypothetically policy, I don’t think it makes much sense (as it would be worse under current policy). Let’s look at their lives under the current present day policy. They have two choices: 1) quit for no pay so that they don’t get COVID, business probably goes under, they go on unemployment, doesn’t work great. 2) they work and take a risk of dying, but, if they make it, they get their job! 

I don’t see how this is better.

Under the hypothetical plan, their choices are better:

1) they quit, use the $20k a year to not get sick and risk reduce. It’s the same as #1 except now they aren’t begging for food stamps. Rent is paid. Society around them still works.

2) they choose to work still. Maybe they get to keep the $20k, maybe they don’t, I’m not sure. That part of policy needs to be fleshed out. But, on the whole, the hope is enough people, given the resources, would choose #1 to greatly reduce their chances of death and/or severe illness 

Im not saying that you force people to not work. In this scenario it would just give them money that allows them the choice. Because right now, the choices aren’t good at all. Maybe it would fall off based on income, I don’t know. Bottom line, if that dude still wants to work, so be it. But he accepts the risk to himself and has a reasonable alternative other than food stamps and poverty if he realizes it’s dangerous. If someone dies when they have no option but to work, it’s a tragedy. But if someone who was high risk died when the gov was bankrolling them $1500-2000 a month to stay safe and they disregarded, well now it’s more of their own fault.

And for folks in a household, that’s not the govs problem to solve. If the gov gives a 69 year old high risk man who lives with his low risk family 20k a year to reduce his risk (arbitrary figure), he and his family should use that money to not live there. That’s the point. High risk parents with kids should use that money to reduce their risk by having their kids attend virtual school. Low risk people in low risk families wouldn’t receive anything, as it’s not needed for the overwhelming majority.

This is all pretty rambly, as it’s hypotheticals, but the point is I think there is a better compromise between liberty and life - for both high and low risk folks - if you incentivize it appropriately.

One final data point highlighting absurdity: none of us on active duty - especially officers and SNCOs - should have received $1800 in stimulus this year. But a loooooot of us did. The fact that we did highlights the inefficiencies and poor incentive structure when it comes to the current gov Covid spending.

Posted
5 hours ago, VMFA187 said:

I'm sorry to hear that. 

Are you tho? Seriously. I honestly don't know where you're coming from when we discuss the value of human life.  Are you looking at it in a strictly utilitarian way? Because that's a dark road indeed.

I understand that the government has caused economic damage, but in the first months of the outbreak there was no way of knowing what the ultimate death toll and survival rate would be.  Now that we have some solid data, I agree that the government can't justify extreme measures anymore.  At least in my state everything is pretty much business as usual, take normal precautions, wear a mask (or don't if you're a Trumpkin anti-masker), go on about your life and business.  I get that isn't reality in California tho......

Posted



This is an interesting discussion, and, just as a reminder, it’s all a hypothetical policy.

I think a lot of your points are more a problem of tradition than anything else. I think there were many ways to think outside of the box. And this is coming from someone who believed in lockdowns and still trusts the science. I just don’t know if the current plan (threats of lockdown) is tenable in American culture. Lockdowns, when followed, work fine. But lockdowns in reality don’t work due to a multitude of sociological factors.
For example, if we had implemented a strong national health jobs/retraining system (perhaps bolstered by a trillion dollars), maybe we could have rapidly trained a surplus of low risk, unemployed people to be “respiratory techs.” That could reduce load on docs and nurses. Oh and since it’s an unprecedented emergency, let’s not arbitrarily require that training to be 1-2 years. Desperate times call for appropriate risk acceptance IMO, so let’s make it a ~6 week, intensive certification. I am absolutely sure there is something we could have done as a nation to respond to this from a job perspective to reduce the strain on the Manning side of the healthcare system. 
And I agree that this solution wouldn’t 100% solve the problem, but 100% is too lofty of a goal. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. With policy like this, you could probably hit the 69% solution and at least benefit a bigger portion of society while preserving liberty and life for those that aren’t as affected.
And to your point about the high risk person that would lose their job under this hypothetically policy, I don’t think it makes much sense (as it would be worse under current policy). Let’s look at their lives under the current present day policy. They have two choices: 1) quit for no pay so that they don’t get COVID, business probably goes under, they go on unemployment, doesn’t work great. 2) they work and take a risk of dying, but, if they make it, they get their job! 
I don’t see how this is better.
Under the hypothetical plan, their choices are better:
1) they quit, use the $20k a year to not get sick and risk reduce. It’s the same as #1 except now they aren’t begging for food stamps. Rent is paid. Society around them still works.
2) they choose to work still. Maybe they get to keep the $20k, maybe they don’t, I’m not sure. That part of policy needs to be fleshed out. But, on the whole, the hope is enough people, given the resources, would choose #1 to greatly reduce their chances of death and/or severe illness 
Im not saying that you force people to not work. In this scenario it would just give them money that allows them the choice. Because right now, the choices aren’t good at all. Maybe it would fall off based on income, I don’t know. Bottom line, if that dude still wants to work, so be it. But he accepts the risk to himself and has a reasonable alternative other than food stamps and poverty if he realizes it’s dangerous. If someone dies when they have no option but to work, it’s a tragedy. But if someone who was high risk died when the gov was bankrolling them $1500-2000 a month to stay safe and they disregarded, well now it’s more of their own fault.
And for folks in a household, that’s not the govs problem to solve. If the gov gives a 69 year old high risk man who lives with his low risk family 20k a year to reduce his risk (arbitrary figure), he and his family should use that money to not live there. That’s the point. High risk parents with kids should use that money to reduce their risk by having their kids attend virtual school. Low risk people in low risk families wouldn’t receive anything, as it’s not needed for the overwhelming majority.
This is all pretty rambly, as it’s hypotheticals, but the point is I think there is a better compromise between liberty and life - for both high and low risk folks - if you incentivize it appropriately.
One final data point highlighting absurdity: none of us on active duty - especially officers and SNCOs - should have received $1800 in stimulus this year. But a loooooot of us did. The fact that we did highlights the inefficiencies and poor incentive structure when it comes to the current gov Covid spending.


Really great points.

You're correct on training med techs. I'm not sure how long it takes to train a med tech, but it is much shorter.

I see your points with paying people to stay home. I think they're valid from an individual's point of view. From the business' point of view, that's still a worker lost, so they are either going to fill that position if they can, or find ways to gain efficiencies and eliminate that position. I'll admit that I left off post pandemic that many jobs will come back, but may force people into different job fields. But that's life and timing.

But you bring up a good point-Congress was very hesitant to give money directly to individuals, and elected to give money to businesses with the hopes that it would trickle down to workers, primarily in continued employment. Both options have their issues, and it's a trade-off between variables that are intertwined.

Been reading some interesting stuff online on wealth and morality in the US. Short version is we in the US, as a capitalistic and individualistic society, have tied being poor with being lazy and immorality. The corollary to that is that being rich means you worked hard to get rich, and must have shown great work ethic to get there, putting you in a position of moral superiority. In some cases, that's true. But if you have rich or well connected family, more opportunities come your way than if your family wasn't rich or well connected, which opens the door for more opportunities. So it makes it very easy to look down on people who are struggling or poor as being lazy, or for some other personal failing, when maybe they just need a hand to get back on their feet, or have an opportunity to prove themselves. On the flip side, the rich are looked up as role models, even though they may just be extremely lucky with their connections (the Kardashians, for example).

I think that's why many Americans, especially conservatives, have opposed direct payments. And Republicans are catering to businesses. Even the stimulus check we got were just that- spend money on the economy. Doesn't matter on what. It wasn't really pandemic relief for individuals, it was to keep the economic machine running since people typically start saving and cutting expenses when hard times come about.

Your example of mixed risk households is valid, but there are others that make it more difficult. (What follows isn't a spear, just my ramblings about me) My wife is pregnant, putting her at high risk for severe COVID complications as well as bad outcomes for the baby. We are fortunate enough (and have discussed) dropping down to a single income if needed to protect her and our baby, especially since she's a nurse that interacts with COVID patients. So great for us, and definitely coming from a place of privilege for that to be a legit option for us. Though we both did manage to catch COVID (likely through her work), and fortunately my wife and our future kid are well, though I'm still working through lingering complications with my flight doc despite not being hospitalized.

But other pregnant nurses she works with can't afford to drop down to a single income, though your proposed payment would likely change that, while the current plan did nothing for them. If all the pregnant nurses left my wife's clinic, their clinics would take a major hit to their patient capacity, because they already make heavy use of med techs and typically only have a couple nurses on the floor in a given shift, and are short staffed on nurses to begin with. Not to mention the couple of nurses pulled from the schedule for being COVID positive. Plus their company has a 6 month training program before they are cleared to work unsupervised. So with this in mind, can or should the government force skilled essential workers to work regardless of their risk level in the interest of the greater public good?

Lastly, I agree with you that I, as an married FGO with no kids, probably shouldn't have gotten a stimulus check (and I'm pretty sure I'll have to pay it back anyways since my income in 2020 was significantly higher than my 2019 income used to determine eligibility for to a deployment)
Posted
15 hours ago, Homestar said:

Are you tho? Seriously. I honestly don't know where you're coming from when we discuss the value of human life.  Are you looking at it in a strictly utilitarian way? Because that's a dark road indeed.

I understand that the government has caused economic damage, but in the first months of the outbreak there was no way of knowing what the ultimate death toll and survival rate would be.  Now that we have some solid data, I agree that the government can't justify extreme measures anymore.  At least in my state everything is pretty much business as usual, take normal precautions, wear a mask (or don't if you're a Trumpkin anti-masker), go on about your life and business.  I get that isn't reality in California tho......

If I say something, I mean it. In person or on here.

I agree that in the first month, where we knew little about the virus those measures were prudent. However, like you mentioned, it is shameful that in places like California the government is still utilizing the same actions despite knowing significantly more about the virus. Why is that?

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Posted

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/01/13/moderna-ceo-says-the-world-will-have-to-live-with-the-coronavirus-forever.html

Moderna CEO says COVID never going away even with vaccine. 

One thing not discussed is we don't know yet if the vaccine can get us to herd immunity even with wide adoption. It appears that scientist are very unsure whether the vaccine is effective at preventing transmission. We just received doses at our base but I refuse to be vaccinated before my parents have both doses, out of principle. Ridiculous they are in their late 70s and need to wait until late February and we have Airmen in their early 20s that can get it now. 

 

Posted
23 hours ago, slc said:

Over 70 aunt in nursing home, Covid positive, "recovered", administered vaccine and immediately experienced multiple seizures over several days.....  there are indeed ALOT of unknowns 

This is not in regard to this specific comment.  It just reminds me to mention for all those suggestable people out there that are inclined to believe their gut, or buy into consipiracy theories:

The plan is to innoculate billions of people.  When you do anything with numbers that large, low probability events will occur.  You could hand a party balloon to 3 billion people and a non-zero number of them would stroke out and die immediately after they took it from you. 

So prepare yourself to be skeptical of cause-and-effect claims for any side effects of the vaccine.  There will be numerous cases of people who were 'destined' to die at 5pm on Wednesday, and just happened to have their vaccination at 4pm.  There will be numerous cases of people 'destined' to develop ALS or Guillain-Barre syndrome in June that just happened to get vaccinated in late May. 

Conspiracy theorists will have a field day with this, but 'legitimate' media will focus on it as well because tradgedy sells.  Unless the claims come with statistics that show significance, they're noise.  Treat it as such.

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Posted
1 hour ago, FLEA said:

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/01/13/moderna-ceo-says-the-world-will-have-to-live-with-the-coronavirus-forever.html

Moderna CEO says COVID never going away even with vaccine. 

One thing not discussed is we don't know yet if the vaccine can get us to herd immunity even with wide adoption. It appears that scientist are very unsure whether the vaccine is effective at preventing transmission. We just received doses at our base but I refuse to be vaccinated before my parents have both doses, out of principle. Ridiculous they are in their late 70s and need to wait until late February and we have Airmen in their early 20s that can get it now.

The possible ability for a vaccinated person to carry and transmit live virus has zero impact on being able to reach herd immunity (which doesn't mean the virus dies out completely, by the way).  In fact, it would only "help" that cause by leading to more naturally aquired immunity through infection.  Vaccinated people could be shedding massive amounts of virus into the ether, and if everybody around also has vaccine derived immunity, then nothing happens.

The only question that matters is what the nature of both vaccine and infection based immunity is.  How long does it last?  How often will mutations occur, and will immunity extend to the new strains?

Vaccine dervied antibody immunity probably dissipates over time.  We don't know yet.  However, lifetime cellular immunity will likely reduce duration and severity of future infections even if antibody protection goes away.

Posted
3 hours ago, FLEA said:

Moderna CEO says COVID never going away even with vaccine.

I’m sure the CEO of the pharmaceutical company making billions off a vaccine doesn’t want the disease to go away. Ever. 

He’s probably right. COVID isn’t as deadly as smallpox, which humans did eradicate. 

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Posted
On 12/24/2020 at 3:42 PM, Snuggie said:

Through some luck and timing I was offered and given the Pfizer COVID vaccine yesterday from my civilian job. So far the only side effect I've noticed is my arm being sore. Otherwise I feel fine. 

Second dose slightly worse than the first. Sore arm and got hit with fatigue the day after the vaccine. Heard a variety of side effects from staff coming in for their second vaccine, most were pretty mild. 

My hospital has enough doses to give everybody who wants one a vaccine and should finish with first doses within the next few weeks. 

I disagree with many parts of my state's COVID policy but they have done a good job so far with vaccinations. Of course the hardest part is ahead as the vaccinations need to go out to the general population. 

Posted
On 1/12/2021 at 9:16 PM, jazzdude said:

Been reading some interesting stuff online on wealth and morality in the US. Short version is we in the US, as a capitalistic and individualistic society, have tied being poor with being lazy and immorality. The corollary to that is that being rich means you worked hard to get rich, and must have shown great work ethic to get there, putting you in a position of moral superiority. In some cases, that's true. But if you have rich or well connected family, more opportunities come your way than if your family wasn't rich or well connected, which opens the door for more opportunities. So it makes it very easy to look down on people who are struggling or poor as being lazy, or for some other personal failing, when maybe they just need a hand to get back on their feet, or have an opportunity to prove themselves. On the flip side, the rich are looked up as role models, even though they may just be extremely lucky with their connections (the Kardashians, for example).

I think that's why many Americans, especially conservatives, have opposed direct payments. And Republicans are catering to businesses. Even the stimulus check we got were just that- spend money on the economy. Doesn't matter on what. It wasn't really pandemic relief for individuals, it was to keep the economic machine running since people typically start saving and cutting expenses when hard times come about.

Lastly, I agree with you that I, as an married FGO with no kids, probably shouldn't have gotten a stimulus check (and I'm pretty sure I'll have to pay it back anyways since my income in 2020 was significantly higher than my 2019 income used to determine eligibility for to a deployment)

Check out the Pareto principle (not saying you're unfamiliar) - the idea behind the 80/20 rule. 80% (Crush 'em) of work is done by 20% of the employees; 80% of your productivity boils down to 20% of the "things" you have to do; etc, etc. It shows up in a very wide range of places...wealth distribution is one of them. I'm not against safety nets or providing honest help in situations with bonafide needs. I just think corollary to that is time-limited, strict, and conservative upper bounds on $$$ handed out.

Personally I opposed direct payments partly because I don't think a pandemic is reason to start paying people income who didn't have it in the first place. Homeboy wasn't working before there was a pandemic, he was cool with not having money? Cool. Why, now, does he need a check? The second reason I opposed them was because it keeps people tied to their jobs. Now, we have instances of people quitting because it's more lucrative to be unemployed. Translation: it's more lucrative for them to have other people work to pay their taxes and for them to sit home and collect that "extra" EOY money.

Agree on all of us getting checks. Ridiculous.

Posted
4 hours ago, ViperMan said:

Now, we have instances of people quitting because it's more lucrative to be unemployed.

That’s been happening forever thanks to out of control social programs. The recent stimulus checks are just another iron in the fire to perpetuate what has already been happening. Great post. 

Posted

One thing that would help is to eliminate the cliffs in our current system.  There are several areas in the current way government assistance works where getting a job/getting a raise results in less total money coming in.  If we can smooth those transitions so that someone can work their way out of poverty without ending up worse off at any point, we can create an incentive to work and get raises and eventually get off government assistance.

We saw this in Seattle when they went to $15/hr minimum wage.  A bunch of people no longer qualified for government benefits as full-time workers and asked to have hours slashed because they were losing money by having their wages increased.  If we can introduce intermediate steps that reduce, but not eliminate, government assistance in those cases, there's less disincentive to get a better job or work longer hours.

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Posted



Check out the Pareto principle (not saying you're unfamiliar) - the idea behind the 80/20 rule. 80% (Crush 'em) of work is done by 20% of the employees; 80% of your productivity boils down to 20% of the "things" you have to do; etc, etc. It shows up in a very wide range of places...wealth distribution is one of them. I'm not against safety nets or providing honest help in situations with bonafide needs. I just think corollary to that is time-limited, strict, and conservative upper bounds on $$$ handed out.
Personally I opposed direct payments partly because I don't think a pandemic is reason to start paying people income who didn't have it in the first place. Homeboy wasn't working before there was a pandemic, he was cool with not having money? Cool. Why, now, does he need a check? The second reason I opposed them was because it keeps people tied to their jobs. Now, we have instances of people quitting because it's more lucrative to be unemployed. Translation: it's more lucrative for them to have other people work to pay their taxes and for them to sit home and collect that "extra" EOY money.
Agree on all of us getting checks. Ridiculous.


80/20 is a heuristic (rule of thumb), and works well enough that you can describe pretty much anything using that and it'll sounds reasonable. Often it can be a good starting point, but isn't so much a "law" as it is a good estimation starting point.

A person out of work going into the pandemic was not in a good place to get a job as the pandemic progressed (with layoffs, furloughs, or businesses just going under), and many people have lost their jobs (or had reduced income) as well in the course of the pandemic. You make the assumption (like in my previous post) that because they were out of work, that they are lazy (personal failure): they just need to try harder. But any number of things could've driven them being out of work (moved to a new town for better opportunities, an injury forcing a shift in career fields, just finishing school/training and in the process of job hunting, for example). Could just be bad luck and horrible timing, and not anything an individual may be able to actually control. If you focus on the people gaming the system, or are just lazy, you may miss many other people trying to work and earn an "honest" living, but can't find a job.

Maybe money to individuals isn't the right answer. But what about funding food/groceries? Like a food bank or soup kitchen, but government backed providing food essentials during the pandemic for anyone who needs it? Hell, don't have any restrictions except maybe you can pick up a certain amount in a certain time period. People with stable jobs will likely buy their preferred food ahead of a handout, and the people that need it have at least for security to help pay rent or other bills, especially if they faced an hours cut.

The hard part about checking for bona fide need is that it creates a lot of overhead to collect, determine, and adjudicate need, increasing costs with no additional benefit. Alternatively, you can assume and accept there will be a certain amount waste (which will it exist at some level regardless), but that on the whole is beneficial. This is especially true if the cost of anticipated (or actual) waste is less than the cost of oversight and administration. But this can be distasteful to some, because people of differing values/assumptions can point to the waste and say the program is a failure, and ignore the good that is happening elsewhere.

So going back to the pareto principle, you could say 80% of the fraud/waste in a government program is caused by 20% of the people receiving the benefit, which I'd argue is a pretty reasonable estimate to start discussing with. Does that mean the program should be ended because fraud is occurring? What about the 80-ish% that weren't committing fraud that the benefit actually provides measurable help to? The next logical answer may be to eliminate the fraud through installing additional oversight. This means hiring a staff to assess each request for benefits before it's paid out, and if you want to provide the benefits in a timely manner, hiring enough staff to do so (while accounting for vacations, sick leave, and emergencies), which adds costs to the government program. So if there's $800k in fraud/waste happening, but it costs $1M to hire adequate staff to administer the program in a timely manner and eliminate the fraud, is there any tangible benefit to eliminating the fraud, outside of punishing those that have committed fraud, or for political optics or virtue signaling? This is the crux of the small government idea (and in this instance I think less government oversight is the right answer based on the assumptions I laid out, unless it can be shown that additional oversight at fair and reasonable wage/benefits would drive costs down).
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Posted

IIRC, the argument for giving payments directly to people was that it was less expensive to just write those checks than it would have been to pay for the administrative burden of things like paying rent to landlords, paying mortgages to lending companies, paying for food through something like an EBT card, etc.

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Posted (edited)
8 hours ago, ViperMan said:

Homeboy wasn't working before there was a pandemic, he was cool with not having money? Cool. Why, now, does he need a check?

I think this is a poor representation of the problem, because I’m certain if that “homeboy” doesn’t have money, he’s trying to find a way to get some. Every human in American society has to spend money on food and shelter or else they become destitute. It’s not a “choice” to engage in the American economy for all but the most privileged of people.

 

Edited by Negatory
Too snarky
Posted
35 minutes ago, pawnman said:

IIRC, the argument for giving payments directly to people was that it was less expensive to just write those checks than it would have been to pay for the administrative burden of things like paying rent to landlords, paying mortgages to lending companies, paying for food through something like an EBT card, etc.

Yes, this is entirely it, it’s horridly inefficient just so people can sneer and say “the poor wouldn’t know what to do with money anyways.” What? The vast majority would spend their money on food and shelter, I’ll tell you that.

$3.1T so far, with the vast majority of benefits helping big business or pump the stock market. Could have given every single person almost $10k for that amount of money. Do you feel like the average American has received $10k worth of government assistance?

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Posted

I had the idea in Afganistan in 2008, but who trusts a middling Capt with this?  Mark Cuban nailed it.  With minor exceptions, don't give any money to industries, give it all to the people. That money will trickle up into the industries where it's needed as people keep living their lives, buying food, paying rent, making car payments etc, and you see actual benefits to taxpayers, not corporations who turn around and pay themselves instead of taking care of their people.

Posted


It’s not a “choice” to engage in the American economy for all but the most privileged of people.

Disagree here. For the most privileged/richest, they are intertwined with the economy, just in a different way than the "average" person. Their money is tied up in investments, which help arguably funds the economy (or at least the portions that are funded on the open market, or in their business). So in a sense, their wealth is tied strongly to the economy.

But with more money comes more options. They could sit on a big pile of physical cash and hoard it like a dragon, but I don't think anyone really does that. Even just having money sit in the bank allows the bank to make loans and investments based on that money sitting in a savings account, and keeps money moving in the economy. Or they can move money to better investments.

About the only ways I can think a wealthy person can minimize engaging in the US economy is to move money over to foreign markets, or hoard physical assets (like precious metals) in lieu of money. But they'll have to participate at some level unless they leave and take their assets with them.

There is some level of trickle down effect as well (not that I'm a big believer in trickle down economics). Take Elon Musk for example. He holds a large portion of Tesla's stock, and Tesla employs many people in various jobs and fields of work. His and other shareholder money allows a pooling of talent and resources to do things an individual or a small company just couldn't do, and creates many jobs that wouldn't exist otherwise (asking the lines of middle management, accounting departments, etc) However, if Elon decided to cash in his Tesla stake (say Space X is almost ready to go colonize Mars, and needs a large infusion of cash to fund the launches), Tesla would probably go under as a business, or it would at least significantly hurt their financials and ability to operate (loss of significant capital, which would drive stock prices way down, resulting in a further loss of capital), and would lead to layoffs, factory and storefront closures, and other economic impacts to the surrounding communities as Tesla workers are furloughed or fired. On the other side, Space X would be purchasing more good and services from subcontractors and suppliers, and have a positive impact economically for the communities Space X touches. So Elon's movement of money would have a big economic impact. Though I guess going on a one way trip to Mars to create a self sustaining colony is another way to exit the US economy if you are rich enough.

Also, there's another choice to avoid the economy: Straight up theft of goods and services. At least until you are caught. Means nothing to be a member in a society if you can't get your basic needs met (food/shelter) following society's rules. And if there's no connection to the society, there's no reason to obey or comply with that society's rules in order to meet your basic needs.

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