View Full Version : So.....no signature, no bill.
gimmethesimplelife
12-24-20, 4:53pm
What's your take on this?
I'm afraid that many Americans upon discovering the truth of the America I have known will not be as civil and decent about it as I have been. I see utter mayhem and unrest around the corner, much deeper and much more nationwide than during this Summer's National Police Brutality IS Real Realization(s). I'm hoping for the best but of course we have been stocking up on basics just in case and have a place to run to should it come to that (in Sonora with SO's family).
I know there are those here who consider me the very definition of over the top. Fair enough. As an American with functioning brain cells, I understand that this situation is the very definition of over the top. It's about self protection now until there is a signature on a bill to kick the can down the road once more.
And it's Christmas Eve, for crying out loud! I wish I could be more positive and optimistic! Does anyone see any reason to be, given the givens of this situation? Rob
I would rather $2000 than $600 for people in need even if it takes awhile longer. Trump is thinking of what he can run on in 2024 but he still has a point.
Hey, my wife served me with divorce papers on Christmas Eve, this is nothing :-)
gimmethesimplelife
12-24-20, 5:22pm
Hey, my wife served me with divorce papers on Christmas Eve, this is nothing :-)I'd agree the timing sucks.....sorry this happened, bae. Rob
ToomuchStuff
12-25-20, 3:01am
Enough bad memories of Christmas, this is nothing. So Trump doesn't want to sign it, then there is a work around.
I see he decided to sign it in the end after maximizing the agitation. He seems to me to be in an “apre moi le deluge” mood.
catherine
12-28-20, 12:14pm
He seems to me to be in an “apre moi le deluge” mood.
Absolutely, and he's reveling in it.
I hear there is going to be a vote on the $2k/pp.
I am glad for those who truly are in need. They can come back and propose more later. I have no idea what it would be like to be like to be unemployed these days, but I believe there are certain service jobs that are just not coming back in the foreseeable future and people need to readjust their ambitions or train for different work.
I suppose the spending package also included quite a few pet projects that have nothing to do with Covid. I have wondered if the new regime will have any intention of reducing debt or if they will just assume, like the GOP, that they can print up more new money without consequences.
happystuff
12-28-20, 1:27pm
...and people need to readjust their ambitions or train for different work.
Like people aren't trying to do this already?
The warehouse I work at now is still hiring. Very physical work and they will be cutting back their holiday bonus pay at the end of the year down to under $15.00/hour, but - hey - time to "readjust ambitions" or get different "training" because it's such an easy thing to do and ageism, sexism, racism, etc. no longer exists in the U.S. workforce. >8)
catherine
12-28-20, 1:33pm
I am glad for those who truly are in need. They can come back and propose more later. I have no idea what it would be like to be like to be unemployed these days, but I believe there are certain service jobs that are just not coming back in the foreseeable future and people need to readjust their ambitions or train for different work.
I'm so glad at least ONE of my kids adhered to my "do as I say, not as I do" financial practices. The restaurant worker son who was furloughed in April, then brought back in July, then furloughed again in September managed to apply for (and get) restaurant worker grants and save all the money he could with the federal stimulus package and he now STILL has enough to get him through to spring. And the new stimulus will be icing on the cake. He has no debt, a very small apartment in downtown Burlington ($875/month), and no car. So he has rent, cable and utilities and that's it.
But he sees the writing on the wall, and so he is considering either a) going full steam ahead with his music or b) going to community college to start a new career at age 36 in psychology or social services. He will only go back to the restaurant industry in order to pay bills.
This is tough. Every day I read about a new business shuttering here in Vermont. Today it was an innovative culinary school. DS's former boss actually posted a GoFundMe campaign to get them through mid-2021 and they raised $25k. The local "nice" restaurant started a pizza truck. People will have to be creative and take risks to get over this.
gimmethesimplelife
12-28-20, 1:42pm
I'm so glad at least ONE of my kids adhered to my "do as I say, not as I do" financial practices. The restaurant worker son who was furloughed in April, then brought back in July, then furloughed again in September managed to apply for (and get) restaurant worker grants and save all the money he could with the federal stimulus package and he now STILL has enough to get him through to spring. And the new stimulus will be icing on the cake. He has no debt, a very small apartment in downtown Burlington ($875/month), and no car. So he has rent, cable and utilities and that's it.
But he sees the writing on the wall, and so he is considering either a) going full steam ahead with his music or b) going to community college to start a new career at age 36 in psychology or social services. He will only go back to the restaurant industry in order to pay bills.
This is tough. Every day I read about a new business shuttering here in Vermont. Today it was an innovative culinary school. DS's former boss actually posted a GoFundMe campaign to get them through mid-2021 and they raised $25k. The local "nice" restaurant started a pizza truck. People will have to be creative and take risks to get over this.Catherine - about your son and coming from someone with years of f anf b experience - grocery retail has been a lifesaver for me. I'm making 1.75/hour more and have better benefits after 90 days. I don't know the specifics of the local economy in Burlington, true - but I thought I"d mention grocery, if only as a bill paying steppingstone to something else. Rob
ApatheticNoMore
12-28-20, 1:52pm
Like people aren't trying to do this already?
The warehouse I work at now is still hiring. Very physical work and they will be cutting back their holiday bonus pay at the end of the year down to under $15.00/hour, but - hey - time to "readjust ambitions" or get different "training" because it's such an easy thing to do and ageism, sexism, racism, etc. no longer exists in the U.S. workforce.
Add to that the fact that better paying jobs have a lot of competition, it takes longer to land them, even assuming you can eventually. You will on average spend more time unemployed looking for them than a lower paying job. The reality at least here, seems to be lots of low paying jobs and a high cost of living, and imagining those low paying jobs are being replaced with "better" jobs you just need more training for is fantasy. There aren't enough decent paying jobs to go around. Even if lower paying jobs go away, that just means lower paying jobs go away, not that better paying jobs magically appear in their place.
The retain for a new career thing mostly only works when it does at all for a certain age, and that age is hard to define but realistically it's probably be retrained before 40 at least. You are 28 and in a dead-end job, sure maybe get training for a new career. You are 50 and in a dead-end job, yea um there is no easy way out, keep looking and all that of course, but there is not necessarily any retraining pixie dust. You want to add a credential and can afford to pay for it, go for it, it may improve career prospects in an existing career, it's just not going to magically create job offers where there aren't any which is what people who tell the unemployed to retrain imagine.
When unemployed may in many ways be the worst possible time to seek additional education (unless one is young and going back to school they had quit for a job or something, then it's probably a good decision, my blessings to such wise 20 somethings for which it will likely pay off). Except that one has time, well yea there is that, time, just no money and boatloads of stress.
The warehouse I work at now is still hiring. Very physical work and they will be cutting back their holiday bonus pay at the end of the year down to under $15.00/hour, but - hey - time to "readjust ambitions" or get different "training" because it's such an easy thing to do and ageism, sexism, racism, etc. no longer exists in the U.S. workforce. >8)
I have a friend in the restaurant business who says about half of the restaurants around here are going to go under. I suspect it's a similar outlook for airline jobs, just to mention a couple. I understand some of the difficulties and issues, but it would seem the options are, adjust ambitions, get training, or long term unemployment. It's just not a pretty picture.
ApatheticNoMore
12-28-20, 3:50pm
I understand some of the difficulties and issues, but it would seem the options are, adjust ambitions, get training, or long term unemployment. It's just not a pretty picture.
but the point being made is not that it's difficult, but that it might not be a choice of: get training OR long term unemployment, but get training AND long term unemployment (or at least get training and get a job that makes no use of it and doesn't care about it). Because training is not much of a solution to unemployment.
Meanwhile there is always the cost of training and unless one can get the government to pay it all, it's wondering if one is spending money one doesn't have (well one sure doesn't have it if unemployed) on training that may well lead nowhere, and on how wise a decision that really is to spend down one's precious pennies going for broke as it were, on the off shot it pays off, maybe may as well take it to Vegas!
but the point being made is not that it's difficult, but that it might not be a choice of: get training OR long term unemployment, but get training AND long term unemployment (or at least get training and get a job that makes no use of it and doesn't care about it). Because training is not much of a solution to unemployment.
Meanwhile there is always the cost of training and unless one can get the government to pay it all, it's wondering if one is spending money one doesn't have (well one sure doesn't have it if unemployed) on training that may well lead nowhere, and on how wise a decision that really is to spend down one's precious pennies going for broke as it were, on the off shot it pays off, maybe may as well take it to Vegas!
A rather unfortunate picture. I don't know what your perspective might suggest for the unemployed in a down and out industry.
Universal basic income with Medicare for all
Many entitlement programs could be eliminated
The numbers say that it’s more affordable to do UBI and Medicare, than it is to continue as we are
catherine
12-28-20, 4:56pm
Universal basic income with Medicare for all
Many entitlement programs could be eliminated
The numbers say that it’s more affordable to do UBI and Medicare, than it is to continue as we are
+1
Universal basic income with Medicare for all
Many entitlement programs could be eliminated
The numbers say that it’s more affordable to do UBI and Medicare, than it is to continue as we are
I mostly agree, but to be honest if not realistic, I'm not seeing that anywhere in the near future. Maybe years or another election from now. I have read a little bit about a revival of a modified Civilian Conservation Corps.
The last time I retrained for a career change was about 20 years ago, and it would have worked just fine if the post 9/11 recession hadn't happened. If I had been a little quicker--like right after I retired--I probably would have had a second career as a technical editor. My age didn't seem to matter much.
iris lilies
12-28-20, 6:35pm
Universal basic income with Medicare for all
Many entitlement programs could be eliminated
The numbers say that it’s more affordable to do UBI and Medicare, than it is to continue as we are
Which entitlement programs would you eliminate?
I have an out of state friend in my older age group who had owned a small crafts type shop with one or two employees who sold out early in the pandemic. She's now a sales rep for a company that sells pet supplies and seems to be getting along well. Mostly works out of the house now, though I don't know much of the finer details. No doubt some on the job type of training was required, plus her business background. That has seemed like a reasonable transition to me. I'm mostly glad to be retired, so it's easy to pontificate.
catherine
12-28-20, 6:53pm
Catherine - about your son and coming from someone with years of f anf b experience - grocery retail has been a lifesaver for me. I'm making 1.75/hour more and have better benefits after 90 days. I don't know the specifics of the local economy in Burlington, true - but I thought I"d mention grocery, if only as a bill paying steppingstone to something else. Rob
Thanks, Rob! I'll pass along the information. He does want out of the restaurant industry.
ApatheticNoMore
12-28-20, 6:54pm
I have an out of state friend in my older age group who had owned a small crafts type shop with one or two employees who sold out early in the pandemic. She's now a sales rep for a company that sells pet supplies and seems to be getting along well. Mostly works out of the house now, though I don't know much of the finer details. No doubt some on the job type of training was required, plus her business background. That has seemed like a reasonable transition to me. I'm mostly glad to be retired, so it's easy to pontificate.
Sales is kind of it's own thing, seems you can sometimes get in with little in experience or training and potentially make good money IF you are good at it. If it's largely paid via commission, the risk structure is different than bringing on an employee, heck even than bringing on a contract employee (which companies can also be surprisingly picky about).
I mostly agree, but to be honest if not realistic, I'm not seeing that anywhere in the near future. Maybe years or another election from now. I have read a little bit about a revival of a modified Civilian Conservation Corps.
I've seen some of the projects made by the Civilian Conservation Corps and I think most Americans are too lazy to do that type of work, just as they are too lazy to do farm work so we are bringing in migrant workers when due to the pandemic the borders should be closed.
You will hear lots of excuses that people have this or that medical condition and they can't do physical labor. Keep in mind that most people in this country used to be farmers, they generally worked until close to when they died because there was no Social Security, and there were no tractors or other mechanized equipment. My ancestors lived this way.
If people had to do this type of work they would adjust, we wouldn't have 36.5 percent of Americans obese and another 32.5 percent overweight, and lots of chronic diseases would be shed with the pounds. Far fewer people would die of covid.
But of course pointing out these facts is politically incorrect. People want the government dole without the labor requirement, and they sure as hell don't want to adjust their diets.
ETA my mother is 80 and recently helped a friend of hers in her early 60s with yardwork because the friend is too heavy to do it. My dad is 82 and loves when it snows because he can go around the neighborhood shoveling and is not bored. If octogenarians can do outdoor work, unemployed 20 and 30 somethings from the service sector sure could.
catherine
12-28-20, 7:16pm
I've seen some of the projects made by the Civilian Conservation Corps and I think most Americans are too lazy to do that type of work, just as they are too lazy to do farm work so we are bringing in migrant workers when due to the pandemic the borders should be closed.
You will hear lots of excuses that people have this or that medical condition and they can't do physical labor. Keep in mind that most people in this country used to be farmers, they generally worked until close to when they died because there was no Social Security, and there were no tractors or other mechanized equipment. My ancestors lived this way.
If people had to do this type of work they would adjust, we wouldn't have 36.5 percent of Americans obese and another 32.5 percent overweight, and lots of chronic diseases would be shed with the pounds. Far fewer people would die of covid.
But of course pointing out these facts is politically incorrect. People want the government dole without the labor requirement, and they sure as hell don't want to adjust their diets.
ETA my mother is 80 and recently helped a friend of hers in her early 60s with yardwork because the friend is too heavy to do it. My dad is 82 and loves when it snows because he can go around the neighborhood shoveling and is not bored. If octogenarians can do outdoor work, unemployed 20 and 30 somethings from the service sector sure could.
Jeppy, here I thought you were a liberal. ;)
I sometimes get glimmers of the unintended consequences of entitlement programs, which of course, are feelings of entitlement. I wish we knew how to deal with that. Abolishing programs isn't the answer, but OTOH, how do you keep people from being picky and whiney? My BIL sat on unemployment rather than getting a job at the convenience store because it was "beneath him." And he was the one simultaneously complaining about undocumented workers taking "American" jobs. You can't have it both ways.
Yet, it is a fact that there are millions who are in dire straits through no fault of their own. People do need help, and I think it is the government's place to see them through as best we can.
At least a couple of Joe Biden’s appointees have advocated some program of mandatory or “social norm” national service. As always with such matters, these visionaries would impose this service on a different age cohort than their own. Nobody thinks they are the ones requiring social engineering.
I say that if you can see your way around the 13th Amendment to conscript people, you should go for the 35 year olds.
Catherine I agree people should be helped, but with work programs. CCC was a liberal New Deal program, so I still can claim the liberal label. Also it was voluntary. You don't want the government funds you don't have to join.
I've done my share of physical labor--from picking beans to shelving books, to grounds cleaning, to climbing ladders. Oddly, I'm still not thin. Oh well...
I love the way Americans just love to "punch down," ignoring the thieves and grifters making billions off our labor while complaining that their peers are all lazy good-for-nothings. A pox upon them, say I.
At least a couple of Joe Biden’s appointees have advocated some program of mandatory or “social norm” national service.
I think I would considerer mandatory service akin to slavery, and take appropriate actions.
It does seem like a slight improvement over being drafted and dying in an unjust war.
It does seem like a slight improvement over being drafted and dying in an unjust war.
Well, they ended the draft when I was 10 years old, nearly 50 years ago.
Now we just take people who "volunteer"....
I love the way Americans just love to "punch down," ignoring the thieves and grifters making billions off our labor while complaining that their peers are all lazy good-for-nothings. A pox upon them, say I.
Come the revolution such false consciousness will need to be extirpated through struggle sessions, re-education camps and an appropriately sanitized internet. Identification and denunciation of class enemies will be taught at the middle school level.
“There’s class warfare, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” --Warren Buffett
I'm on the fence about any sort of required national service. On the one hand bae has a reasonable point about it not being that different from slavery. And I'm certainly glad that the draft didn't exist when the first gulf war happened since I was of an age then that I could very well have been conscripted. On the other hand my father, who was of that age during the korean war, spent the rest of his life believing that his time in the army was one of the best things that ever happened to him. He was lucky in that he got sent to Germany to be part of the post WWII peace keeping force there, so never faced enemy fire, nor was he expected to shoot anyone. But he met people who were very much unlike himself and who had had different upbringings and those acquaintanceships/relationships shaped the rest of his life very much for the better.
Identification and denunciation of class enemies will be taught at the middle school level.
Sounds like a good idea. I didn't learn about the robber barons until I was in high school. Middle school would probably be a better plan.
Wasn't Trump pushing a more "patriotic" re-writing of history being taught in schools. Part of our national heritage is dark, part is not.
I don't remember the 1921 Tulsa "class war" in my public education some days ago, and that seems significant.
I'm on the fence about any sort of required national service. On the one hand bae has a reasonable point about it not being that different from slavery. And I'm certainly glad that the draft didn't exist when the first gulf war happened since I was of an age then that I could very well have been conscripted. On the other hand my father, who was of that age during the korean war, spent the rest of his life believing that his time in the army was one of the best things that ever happened to him. He was lucky in that he got sent to Germany to be part of the post WWII peace keeping force there, so never faced enemy fire, nor was he expected to shoot anyone. But he met people who were very much unlike himself and who had had different upbringings and those acquaintanceships/relationships shaped the rest of his life very much for the better.
I share Bae’s view on involuntary servitude. Whatever benefits accrue from forcing people to work together can’t really justify the forcing part.
Sounds like a good idea. I didn't learn about the robber barons until I was in high school. Middle school would probably be a better plan.
I don’t think you need to worry about the coming generation not being steeped in the culture of denunciation. Look at that recent episode where one high school kid patiently held onto a three second video another had made at age 15 to post when it would do the maximum damage to her college career.
Nor do I think you need to worry about insufficient exposure to half-baked Marxist piffle being promulgated in our public schools and media. There seems to be plenty of Howard Zinn and 1619 Project nonsense floating around. Even Warren Buffet lectures us about the evils of wealth from atop a mountain of cash.
catherine
12-29-20, 11:25am
Even Warren Buffet lectures us about the evils of wealth from atop a mountain of cash.
He doesn't talk about the evils of wealth--he rightly points out that in a just society the wealthy have a moral responsibility to give back. Carnegie said the same thing: "The man who dies rich dies disgraced." It's not the arrow, it's the Indian. Nothing wrong with wealth, but there is something wrong with an individual or a society that exploitatively makes and greedily takes .
Buffett is entitled to his cash, and his approach to giving back is to sign the Billionaires Pledge.
Which entitlement programs would you eliminate?
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/14/budget-neutral-universal-basic-income-plan-would-pay-1320-per-month.html
It’s not perfect but it does try to answer the question of which entitlements yo stop in order to be budget neutral.
Summary: it would not benefit the very poor or the very wealthy. However:
“ Those who have income of between $10,000 and $1 million per year would see an increase of between $5,000 and $14,000 per year in the total amount of money they take home thanks to the UBI payment.”
“ Those who have income of between $10,000 and $1 million per year would see an increase of between $5,000 and $14,000 per year in the total amount of money they take home thanks to the UBI payment.”
According to the article, Social Security and Medicare would be among the programs eliminated to make that 5-14K possible. I’m not sure that even if you would save the full UBI amount you got throughout your adult life that you would have enough to match the full value of those two programs in your old age. Of course, part of that disparity is explained by the fact that both those programs as currently designed are headed toward insolvency.
He doesn't talk about the evils of wealth--he rightly points out that in a just society the wealthy have a moral responsibility to give back. Carnegie said the same thing: "The man who dies rich dies disgraced." It's not the arrow, it's the Indian. Nothing wrong with wealth, but there is something wrong with an individual or a society that exploitatively makes and greedily takes .
Buffett is entitled to his cash, and his approach to giving back is to sign the Billionaires Pledge.
If income inequality is so wrong, why not literally put your money where your mouth is and gift your way down to the middle class? Pledges are a great way to signal your virtue, but they put me in mind of St Augustine’s prayer to “make me chaste, but not yet”.
If income inequality is so wrong, why not literally put your money where your mouth is and gift your way down to the middle class? Pledges are a great way to signal your virtue, but they put me in mind of St Augustine’s prayer to “make me chaste, but not yet”.
I think you answered your own question. One person doing something won’t make a meaningful change. Heck, even building houses for poor people for decades is considered virtue signaling by some.
$600 stimulus in my bank account today. Went into savings.
iris lilies
1-1-21, 11:31am
I think you answered your own question. One person doing something won’t make a meaningful change. Heck, even building houses for poor people for decades is considered virtue signaling by some.
Oh you are wrong there. It’s the starfish analogy—you can’t help all of the starfishes beached in the world, but the one you DO throw back into the sea makes all the difference in the world of that starfish.
Oh you are wrong there. It’s the starfish analogy—you can’t help all of the starfishes beached in the world, but the one you DO throw back into the sea makes all the difference in the world of that starfish.
Or you can sit on the beach demanding other people toss some starfish.
$600 stimulus in my bank account today. Went into savings.
Wow, after I read your post, I checked my account, and sure enough, DH and I got our stimulus as well. IRS direct-deposited it into the account I designate as my tax payment account, so the money will get recycled back to the IRS as soon as my estimated tax payment for 2021 comes due.
$600 stimulus in my bank account today. Went into savings.
Same here.
Mine will pay a tiny percentage of my property tax in May. Sorry--not much stimulus, I'm afraid.
Oh you are wrong there. It’s the starfish analogy—you can’t help all of the starfishes beached in the world, but the one you DO throw back into the sea makes all the difference in the world of that starfish.
At best I could do RPBI* or RCOPBI, but no, I as an individual most definitely could not implement UBI.
* Random Person Basic Income and Random Couple of People Basic Income.
gimmethesimplelife
1-1-21, 9:53pm
$600 stimulus in my bank account today. Went into savings.Same here! Rob
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