Jobless claims: More than 26 million Americans file in the last 5 weeks
rickdugan
Verified and Certifiable Super-Reviewer
Over the past five weeks, more than ***26 million Americans*** have filed unemployment insurance claims.
As quoted in the article:
“At this point it would take a miracle to keep this recession from turning into the Great Depression II,” MUFG economist Chris Rupkey said in an email. “It is going to take years not months to put these pandemic jobless workers back to work at the shops and malls and factories and restaurants across the country ... jobless claims are warning that the worst isn't over yet for the American economy with businesses and consumers alike being sucked down into the abyss of the pandemic recession.”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/coronavir…
Takeaway: We need to get this economy back open as soon as possible to start limiting the damage.
As quoted in the article:
“At this point it would take a miracle to keep this recession from turning into the Great Depression II,” MUFG economist Chris Rupkey said in an email. “It is going to take years not months to put these pandemic jobless workers back to work at the shops and malls and factories and restaurants across the country ... jobless claims are warning that the worst isn't over yet for the American economy with businesses and consumers alike being sucked down into the abyss of the pandemic recession.”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/coronavir…
Takeaway: We need to get this economy back open as soon as possible to start limiting the damage.
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58 comments
OPEN IT UP !
Either get the bailout money or use the meltdown as an excuse to default.
I'm struggling to understand the rationale to continue the lockdown. There must be misguided hidden agendas.
In Sweden, they're doing a very soft lockdown. Nothing's really closed, just urging everyone to use common sense. The economy is still mostly going. My company has factories there that are not closed. Restaurants and bars are open, only large gatherings are prohibited.
Sweden's per capita death rate right now is .019%. The US's per capita death rate right now is .015% with much more extreme measures.
To put that into perspective, the USA as of today has 48,000 deaths. If the Swedish death rate would be applicable in the USA, it would be about 64,000 deaths. So the difference is 16,000 deaths. Sorry to make this about numbers, I know it's not sensitive to those that have lost loved ones, but it's reality.
So the question is, are the extreme measures so far worth roughly 16,000 deaths (to date) or basically a death rate that is roughly 1/3 higher than what it is today. Of course, this assumes a soft lockdown in the USA would have a similar death rate to Sweden, and I doubt that. The rules wouldn't be followed as well here, so the rate is likely higher, but you can't really prove that theory so it's only a theory.
I'm not going to answer my own question. Every life lost can be argued is one too many. But I do buy into the point that both sides of this equation need to be looked at. Flame away if you have better arguments to make. I am glad I am not a politician during this time because these are terrible offsets to have to consider.
1. State Sales Tax
2. State Income Tax
3. State Gasoline Tax
4. State Lottery Sales
My understanding - Covid is not going away. Most will catch it at some point. Vaccine is wishful thinking. So is effective treatment. Only solution is a painful herd immunity.
Testing will help of course but doesn't seem feasible to implement at scale and pace needed.
Given all of this, I'm struggling with the rationale to drive the world into a great depression and have no idea how it can be reopened without going thru a great deal of pain.
Total number US soldiers dead in both Iraq and Afghanistan is about 7000. Coronavirus is 47000 and counting, AFTER taking account of protective measures. No, those numbers don’t tell the whole story but if you want to measure the decision by deaths, those are the numbers.
@lone wolf “That confuses me too.”
Are you guys actually confused by this? Alert, I’m not a trump fan. It makes complete sense. Trump talks a big game until it’s time to be held accountable. If he supported the reopening he would own the consequences. Or do you mean his flip flop from repeatedly pushing states to open? Again, not surprising to us crazies with TDS. We never believe a thing he says and are never surprised when he pretends he never said something and pretends tv cameras haven’t recorded his every word.
PS - stay tuned for an epic flip flop if that VA study is correct and hydroxychloraquine actually is more likely to kill you and has no impact on covid.
The economic implications are enormous -- which we knew would happen, and was a tradeoff we (certainly I) were willing to make. But anywhere the curve has been truly flattened and has low incidence, if they want to open up, let's see where it leads. I have a theory that it won't lead anywhere good, but this (not a month ago, based on delusions of cures happening in a week) is the time to take small gambles.
Well, I think it's more accurate to say that ankle biting weasels would trip over themselves to try to tie every death thereafter around his neck, ignoring the notion that grown adults can and will make their own choices. It's the same political nonsense that has led to this level of economic devastation in the first place.
But it has gone on far enough. Too bad our population isn't made up of more people like the Swedish and less people like Jimmy, but here we are. The same people who are lifting their skirts up now and squealing about the virus are going to be crying poverty 6 months from now and blaming leaders when their own jobs dry up due to continued economic weakness.
I have recently become a proponent of the notion that we should reduce the Social Security payments of every old person to help fund the enhanced unemployment benefits of those who have been consigned to involuntary poverty. This of course would expire in June unless unemployment is extended. I bet public opinion would shift very quickly then in favor of opening up. ;)
Oh golly gee Sub, you're just so clever, really you are. And fear not that incessant repetition of the same joke makes it no less clever, no siree. 😉
--Well, I think it's more accurate to say that ankle biting weasels would trip over themselves to try to tie every death thereafter around his neck, ignoring the notion that grown adults can and will make their own choices. It's the same political nonsense that has led to this level of economic devastation in the first place.--
Now the national press (the aforementioned ankle biting weasels) are going to report every death and uptick in infections as if Kemp is personally responsible for each one. I am simply glad that he had the courage to do it anyway because he is the Governor of the entire state, including all of those people who are being savaged by financial hardship with no way to help themselves.
Hopefully DeSantis will be next. Now that many of those stimulus checks aren't going to come for months and unemployment is several weeks backlogged, many millions of service workers are getting desperate. He is their Governor too, not just the Governor of scared Social Security recipients and fat comfortable white office workers.
She will let the customers and business owners decide the best way to do. She is being pillared of course.
There had been around 200 Covid deaths in Nevada to date.
Thankfully certain Governors understand that not everyone can afford the luxury of sitting around in their pajamas, squealing about social distancing and ordering Amazon Prime deliveries because they're still getting a full paycheck or their full government benefits.
So I'll probably continue to stay home for a few weeks after everybody else goes back to work.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/22/she-got-…
We shall see 25. If I had to guess, I suspect that he is going to open the economy in stages and probably ease restriction sooner in counties that aren't named Dade, Broward and Palm Beach. In the rest of the state, the numbers have trended down very fast and many people are already starting to ignore stay at home orders anyway.
I should also add that the unemployment system in FL is utterly overwhelmed with 3-4 week backlogs and many stimulus checks aren't landing anytime soon, so DeSantis is under a lot of pressure to open things back up where he can.
***Here is a RickDugan prediction***
A lot will open up in FL by May 4th. Kids doing distance learning in my county are now quietly being told to get all of their outstanding work submitted by May 1 for final grades. Wanna guess why that is? Because parents can't go back to work if they have to stay at home to supervise distance learning kids. I'm guessing that Summer break is about to start early in a lot of counties so that parents can put kids in Summer programs and go back to work.
Stay closed long enough they can get a bailout or declare bankruptcy.
Apples and oranges (both my argument and yours). It’s not just the age of the dead or the number of dead. 7k dead 25 y.o. soldiers over a 20 year period in Iraq and Afghanistan does not equal 50k dead (and counting) mostly older people over a 2 month period. Which is worse? Does it matter? It’s not like we can exchange one for the other. Something else to consider is that those soldiers chose to defend our country, and I thank them for it. It would be extremely selfish of me or anyone else to make the choice for the neediest older people that I’m taking my chances, you old folks are going to take your chances too.
Not a black and white issue and we will reopen. I want to have confidence that those in charge or the decision are being thoughtful about it.
That's simplistic. Old people have some control over the level of risk they expose themselves to, unlike the soldiers in the analogy. They can continue to shelter, wear masks in public, distance, etc.,etc.
Sooner or later we are going to have to face the fact that we are only delaying the inevitable and at extraordinary cost. A vaccine is at least a year away, if it ever comes, and nationwide "tracing and tracking" is neither realistic nor likely constitutional. This leaves only herd immunity as the solution as this thing is not going away.
When an autopsy is done of this whole mess years from now, it is likely that Sweden's response is going to look very good comparatively. They are taking their lumps upfront, while trying to protect the elderly in the process, while also preserving their economy for the benefit of the many millions who Swedes who depend upon it.
“Not a black and white issue and we will reopen. I want to have confidence that those in charge or the decision are being thoughtful about it.”
Wow just wow RickiBoi, your grasping at straw men, just to make an argument, where there is no argument is pathetic, to the extreme. Everyone want's to reopen, the conversation is how is the best way to do that, you're being a complete jackass, suggesting one group is more deserving than another.
Just keep making the same tired argument throughout your posts, there's always a bogey man trying to take away what's your's. It's old people, its transsexuals, it's blacks, its latino's your entire body of postings always look for a scapegoat, then foment an argument just to keep yourself occupied, and hypothesize that the person that disagrees with you is a member of that group you are villianizing at the moment.
When will they ever learn?#
Disingenuous histrionics combine the histrionic’s more adaptive social skills, charm, and ability to read the motives and desires of others with a rather calculated malevolence. This histrionic variant is more egocentric, more willingly insincere, and probably more conscious of their manipulations than is the basic histrionic pattern.
**They often seem to enjoy conflict, gaining a degree of gratification or amusement from the excitement and tension they produce.**
JimmyMcNulty 2 hrs ago: "Dugan, your trolling style is tiresome. You pick out a sentence or come up with a straw man and then argue against it.'
If you enjoy sparring with dugan for shits and giggles, enjoy. If you expect a sincere interest in content, consistency in argument, or anything more than superficial social interaction, you picked the wrong TUSCL persona.
#Where Have All the Flowers Gone? 1955 song by Pete Seeger
Joke, that was incredibly insightful. Truly. Clearly you are the one we should turn to when we desire sincere interest in content, consistency in argument and anything more than superficial interaction. 😉
I mean, I would mention that my interest in this is incredibly sincere and that my position on this has been consistent from the beginning, but I would hate to interrupt such cleverly crafted hyperbole, as vapid as it may be. 😀
Sadly I don't have the same level of confidence, especially when we have certain state Governors prohibiting things like lawn mowing and the sale of non-essentials at big box stores that are open anyway. I think that panic and unrelated politics have bled into this process in too many states.
Now I give some credit to the Governor of FL for taking a more balanced approach to this, but even he is a prisoner of panic politics now. I suspect that given his choice, he would have already re-opened the state, but political calculations play a role as ankle biters will try to hang every new fatality around his neck the second he does so.
Total *new* U.S. cases was 25.7k on 04/05 and has being going up and down since and was an all-time high of 38.7k yesterday 04/23 - total deaths has also been up and down with a recent low of 1,570 on 04/19 but up to 2,340 yesterday 04/23.
Seems we're still in the thick of it, w/ social-distancing as the only way to effectively deal w/ it for now - and as testing has ramped-up and anti-body tests coming online, seems there are high #s of asymptomatic people that have no idea they have it.
I'm ready for salons to reopen and I think any business that can do curbside or delivery should be open. Said it before though, I can't really figure out a way travel and hospitality aren't fucked. Even if there were no restrictions, I have a hunch the only people excited to travel for a while will be those who have tested positive for antibodies or recovered.
The fact that we have increasing asymptomatic numbers argues in favor of easing restrictions, not against it. As time goes on it's becoming clear that this is far less deadly than we initially thought.
https://gomerblog.com/2016/03/trump-univ…
***For 25's Math 101 education***
A percentage of a total is calculated by dividing the numerator, which is the sample (in this case, # of deaths) by the denominator, which is the total population (in this case, total # of infections). So if the denominator of total infections is dramatically under-reported, then the resulting % that result in death will look higher than it actually is. This is simple mathematics, lol.
so why not direct some of your pent up anger towards the state unemployment. if they had their shit together, non of the unemployed should be without means for food and rent. if you can't handle that with 3500-4500 a month, you have other issues.
"They can continue to shelter, wear masks in public, distance, etc.,etc"
you do realize that wearing a mask protects others from you being asymptomatic, right?
"Sweden's per capita death rate right now is .019%. The US's per capita death rate right now is .015% with much more extreme measures."
so why aren't you comparing Sweden's numbers with their bordering countries Norway and Finland?