I personally I'm getting richer. Working for a big corp as a software engineer, I've done nothing but saving more money since the lock down started. I've also done much more shopping on Amazon, so I guess I'm giving back some of that money to other big corps. Doing groceries at Costo so money is not leaving the circle of big corps.
I've tried to eat out more often, even leaving less or no tips in order to feel more incentivized to not eat at home.
How? Tipping is friction and makes you feel bad, by not doing it I'm incentivized to eat out more often. What matters to me are small businesses, if I help the workers but not the small businesses there'll be no job for them tomorrow.
I'd be willing to pay more taxes to help the economy, but most people are against this. In the mean time I do my part by eating out more often and visiting small businesses.
I can't figure out if your posts here in this thread are in jest or are serious. Please excuse me if they are in jest...
> I'd be willing to pay more taxes to help the economy, but most people are against this
They are against this because paying more taxes does nothing to "help" the economy. Where do you think tax money goes? It doesn't go to people's bank accounts to pay for rent, groceries, car payments, utility bills etc. or any of the places that would directly contribute to the economy.
> In the mean time I do my part by eating out more often and visiting small businesses.
And as already discussed below - you are also screwing over the employees at those businesses. Quite literally costing them money they could make by serving someone who will tip... so they can, you know, pay for rent and contribute to the economy.
>you are also screwing over the employees at those businesses
Not to open this argument but it's not the patron's job to ensure the staff are paid appropriately. If servers don't want to run the risk of not being paid at least minimum wage, they should ensure their conditions of employment guarantee it and the business should reflect it in their prices.
I have yet to see anyone suggest donating to food banks. Anyone can complain that the government should do something, but if you're not willing to volunteer your own disposable income, you shouldn't expect others to. The average software engineer can probably feed an additional family of four with no effort.
Y’all keep acting like we’re stupid but without collective action at scale or a large cultural change, all you’re doing by not tipping is making some poor persons night miserable.
It's worth noting that servers at restaurants are required by law to make minimum wage. If their actual wages (the minimum the employer can pay them, called the "basic cash wage") plus their tips do not bring them over minimum wage, then their employer is required to make up the difference. So if nobody tips, the business winds up having to pay more.
So you're likely hurting both the worker and employer, and making it more complicated for both of them.
Specifics (basic cash wage value, etc) vary by state.
Anecdotally, from my friends who work in the service industry, this is also a law that is often simply ignored -- so in lean shifts, workers can go home with less than federal minimum wage. Not a good scene.
Would the restaurants prefer I just cook at home or order pick up with no tip? It's an unworkable business model if the direct exchange for the menu price is not enough. There used to be the service of walking your food to you and refilling your drinks a couple times that restaurants claimed the charity was for but it makes no sense when you're picking up directly.
I'd say it's okay not to tip, so long as you tell the person who would have received it your intentions, in advance. Only fair they adjust accordingly.
I get why someone wouldn't like it. But it's not a battle you can fight at that scale. The wait staff get paid $2.13 an hour. They feel the pain, not the business or the American fetish meisters.
You're right and it would need collective action to rectify, and even then you'd encounter some not insignificant amount of those in the service industry who'd loathe a fair minimum wage in lieu of relying on tips as they'd see it as crippling their income.
How it should be and how it is are immensely detached, I think we can all agree on.
> Doing groceries at Costo so money is not leaving the circle of big corps.
Costco's net margin is ~2.6%, so the other 97.4% is leaving Costco for labor (notably well-paid for grocery stores) and whoever their suppliers are. Are they substantially different from your normal grocery store's suppliers? For that matter, is your normal grocery store itself different from Costco in some structural way that is meaningful to you? Perhaps you were previously shopping at a coop like San Francisco's Rainbow Groceries or New York's Park Slope Food Coop?
So you’re getting more for less by eating out more often and not tipping? And you’re also saving more than ever? I mean, that’s cool, but I hope you don’t think you’re being altruistic.
> I've tried to eat out more often, even leaving less or no tips in order to feel more incentivized to not eat at home.
If you live in the US this is a real jerk move. You're talking about how you're getting richer, but then aren't willing to tip the service worker making less than minimum wage?
I don't agree. I don't like tipping and so I do not eat out usually because of this.
Right now I understand that we need to do our part to help small businesses, so I'm making an effort and tricking my brain into eating out by not tipping. This is where I want to put my money: I think it's my responsibility if small businesses are going to survive, I don't think it's my responsibility if workers are not paid well.
I don't like tipping and so I do not eat out usually because of this.
This doesn't really make sense. Without tipping (expected nationally), the cost of labor would just have to be priced directly into the food. Instead of a $15 burger, it would be $20.
If you don't like to spend money on dining out, fine, but it has little to do with tipping and more to do with being frugal.
> This doesn't really make sense. Without tipping (expected nationally), the cost of labor would just have to be priced directly into the food. Instead of a $15 burger, it would be $20.
So basically it does make sense because it is easier if the price is the total cost.
I disagree, tipping is stupid because it is based on percentages. Why should I give more tip because I bought a more expensive item? Sorry but we don't have to agree, forcing tipping on others is an asshole move.
One of the reasons some people visit restaurants is to feel powerful in relation to their server and a big part of that is making them "perform" for a good tip.
You say you don't eat out because you don't like tipping - and that businesses should just pay their employees more so you don't have to tip. OK fine - but doesn't that just result in a meal costing what it does now + tip? How is that any different?
Actually, it would cost more than just standard price + tip as you funnel the money into the business first before it hits the employee's bank account.
> Right now I understand that we need to do our part to help small businesses, so I'm making an effort and tricking my brain into eating out by not tipping
This logic is absurd. Both small businesses and employees of small businesses are being crushed right now. Support them both or don't use their services.
You deciding to eat out is consuming time from the wait staff (who often tips out bussers and kitchen staff too). That time could have been spent serving another table that decides to tip.
You are literally taking money away from small business employees by continuing this behavior. You are punishing them for serving you a meal. How is that appropriate?
Tipping severs is the way our society works. By eating at table service restaurant you are implying that you are going to pay the server despite the fact that you have no intention to do so. It’s no different than your manager dicking you around by saying you’ll probably get a raise if you work overtime despite having no intention to do so.
Rationalize all you want, but you’re acting like a huge asshole.
If you are morally opposed to tipping, eat takeout or at a counter serve restaurant.
True. The wages laws that govern service staff is generally written as a conditional, where the employee earns the greater of:
1. Standard minimum wage
2. Some value less than minimum wage + tips
If the employee doesn't break minimum wage by adding their wage+tips, the employer has to make them whole. And then likely cut their hours and force them to look for other work.
Because people who are in a position to be earning those kinds of wages heavily correlate with other situational factors (social, educational, legal, etc.) which may prevent them from reporting the violations. And, the employers who tend to engage in wage theft are generally small businesses, which there are a ton of.
To everyone: please tip. It is in fact very likely that any given restaurant is not and would not make up the difference in pay for an under-tipped employee.
I followed some of the links and could not find a primary source for the data. (Links were either broken, redirected to the same page, or lead to other secondary sources.) So please link that if you've got it.
> "Over two-thirds" means you are more likely than not to eat at a restaurant that has cheated its employees.
No. It doesn't. It means that, in their entire lifetime as employees of any number of employers, two-thirds of employees, at least once, experienced wage theft in some form.
That's a much different statement and says nothing at all about whether those employees were robbed of overtime, asked to work for free, or their employers claimed tip credits for tips the employees didn't receive.
>That's a much different statement and says nothing at all about whether those employees were robbed of overtime, asked to work for free, or their employers claimed tip credits for tips the employees didn't receive.
These are all examples of "cheating employees", I'm glad we agree.
The only thing we agree on is that the items in the previous post are examples of wage theft.
You've convinced me that you are trolling. You haven't addressed any arguments or provided any meaningful support to your pretty extreme claims. Your proposed solution, even if it were effective, would exclude large numbers of non-tipped employees.
Even if, as you assert without evidence, the various labor boards around the country are ineffective, providing them with the funding that would otherwise go to tipped employees would be a much better solution than tipping. It would simultaneously remove resources from thieving employers, make them easier to identify, make it harder for them to find labor, and provide greater resources for those trying to stop them.
Your original claim (that every tipped employee is making at least minimum wage and employers don't break the law) is in fact more extreme and yet you've provided zero evidence. I've provided plenty of evidence, you just don't like it because it's uncomfortable to think about.
In fact, here, have some more evidence, I'm eager to find out what's wrong these these sources:
It’s also not my job to disprove your unsupported claim by scouring sources you’ve just googled. Even if I stipulated that your sources are credible and true, which they may be, you are making massive leaps in logic in order to support your claim and not even attempting to explain how you got there or addressing my very direct criticisms.
That I am “uncomfortable” talking about this is just a lazy and ironic ad hominem argument. I’ve been talking about it. You’ve been avoiding that conversation. I’m fine talking about it. I’m just not willing to talk to you anymore.
Taking care of their employees should be a business of their employer. They should not transfer their problems over to me: a customer. Sure I can tip if someone did an extraordinary job and impressed me but the last thing I should have on my mind is that If I do not tip then the person would go hungry.
We all understand that, but it's still negligent to not give a tip to workers, who you know depend on it. Until that industry somehow makes the shift away from tipping, people still need to survive.
> Until that industry somehow makes the shift away from tipping
Which it won't do as long as people are tipping, in fact, entirely new industries are being created with deliberate, engineered pressure to expand tipping culture into them.
There's a very good argument that if you are opposed to tipping culture, as well as taking every opportunity to oppose public policy which supports and accommodated it, you ought not participate in it, which only reinforces and perpetuates it.
> I always wonder about non-customer-facing workers at small businesses.
In places that have mandated tip sharing, the same people tipping the customer-facing workers (and, again, this isn't "small-business" specific; chain restaurants are no different than independents here), in places that don't, no one does. Tipping culture is more industry-focussed than scale-of-business focussed.
> tips exist because small businesses grossly underpay their workers.
Tipping culture exists as an excuse for service workers to not only be grossly underpaid, but also to be compensated unequally in ways that would violate nondiscrimination laws if employers did it directly.
There's nothing special about small business, it's not like big chain corporate table-service restaurants (or, say, massive gig economy firms) don't underpay just as badly as any small business.
Americans sometimes seem unaware that tipping culture isn't universal.
Until I visited the US I'd never tipped in my life.
Tipping is a poor substitute for decent wages.
It's also very awkward. I remember going to a wedding with an open bar - drinks were free but then people were getting out cash anyway to tip the bartender even tho no payment was involved? It's very bizarre if you haven't grown up with it.
If the bar tender only handed you a beer bottle - sure, don't tip if you don't want to. Although you should, even if it's a single dollar (ie. proportional to what you are receiving).
But if you order some elaborate drink that takes time and skill to craft - you should tip as a way of saying "thanks for the effort". That was the original idea of tipping, after all - ensuring, measuring and providing direct feedback of service quality.
Basic Income Now, with an immutable tenet that the basic income cannot be restricted or reduced, or contain compliance dependencies. Its time to empower individuals.
It figures that given that you needed to earn money at 9th grade that you would have never become a doctor, lawyer, or any liberal profession that requires multiple years of dedicated studies.
Good for you but that's not how you make an equitable society.
Please reframe your question in a specific context. I’ll make a guess.
There is no bidirectional trust with corporations: assume you could get fucked at every moment.
When trying to convince a corporation (aka a group of people) to give me money I want to be evaluated on and compensated for my objective impact. Subjective evaluations (which can include bias, even the trendy intentional but liberally acceptable race and gender bias) are toxic and can be gamed.
I was in a rough situation and took it on the chin. I didn’t beg for money, I begged for the chance to work. Very different and represents opposing work ethics.
So your systematic rules for ensuring equality in a world of biases is to simply tell people to "judge people" better? And we as a society will know that we've done a good job because we feel like we did?
Wikipedia’s list of countries by homelessness[0] suggests the US has a much lower rate of homelessness that most of the major European countries (Germany, France, Netherlands, United Kingdom, etc.).
That result is shocking to me, as I see homeless people everywhere I go in the US, but that much in comparison in Europe. So I'm wondering what it could be?
- Are the results false? Would a country lie on the numbers? It looks like the US estimation was misleading halved in two[1], the real numbers paint a much different picture placing the US much higher than any European countries.
- Are the results misleading? For example, I see that different years are listed for different countries (2012 for France, 2019 for the US), or that Germany's numbers include "around 375,000 asylum seekers and refugees in temporary accommodation".
- Is reality misleading? For example, it could be that homeless in Europe are taken care of and thus you don't see them much, whereas in the US they are all over the streets because there are no aids. Or it could be that most homeless people in Europe don't live in the cities and are thus out of sight.
UBI is not socialism. If I attached conditions to how that money is spent, it might be socialism...which is why I believe we cannot had conditions to it. I think of it more as an inheritance. Personally, I'd advocate for a taxation free version of UBI, i.e. funded by fiat currency, and added as a policy tool to the Fed to control inflation and employment.
It is a fact that if you grow up near a financial cliff, people will fall off of it. That is not a productive way to conduct a society. It wastes productivity.
Thank you! IRC helped a lot to find clients, and sometimes I fix local people's computer after they realized I am a software engineer[1]. The latter is rare though. Regardless, I have ups and downs still due to expenses but hoping to change that and become financially stable, it is about time, I think. :) COVID-19 is really making it much more difficult though. Not infeasible, but extremely difficult to attain what I want[2] thanks to it. :(
[1] This helps me build connections as well. For example, I fixed a doctor's laptop, and she has helped me with various things because of it.
[2] I want to move to another nearby country. Cheaper and nicer apartments, and the pay is the same because I work remotely.
I figured out how to work and earn money as a 9th grader coming from extreme poverty without even dropping out. Was making $30k/year from 9th - 11th grade. Then I got raped by a rare genetic medical issue.
In your world, I should just go fuck myself for having that medical issue though, right? Get off your high horse of toxicity.
Please don’t think I made my
comment out of malice.
Could you afford privatized health care on UBI along with basic living expenses?
If the amount we’re talking is 2k/m and in the USA I bet not.
It is concerning that you feel the need to berate a random person who made a comment you just happen to disagree with or misunderstood.
You don’t know me, but I’ll share an ancedote. I suffered a life changing health problem and the advice that I was given is “two things happen to sick people: they get better or they die”. The responsibility to adapt is on you. Not society
You seem to not be aware of the simplest definition of "welfare state" nor which nations on Earth identify as such and what it entails. That, or, as stated, you just don't really care.
Either way, that being stated, further discussion would most certainly be fruitless.
Those tenets are important to the universality of UBI. Otherwise, the Federal government would try to impose means testing, or other conditions upon it, which would make it a very socialistic/communistic type of policy. I want it to be something more like a right of citizenship.
The problem with most Basic Income scheme's is they are solely derived from Income based taxation, they redistribute high wage earners income to lower wage earners there by in effect punishing high wages
I can not back such a system as that is tantamount to labor theft and is unethical
Now if you want to base a UBI on something else beside Income based taxation, Such has a Georgist Single land value tax then that would be a more ethical system
I see you have confused wealth and wages. Bezo's famously takes a salary of just over 80K, which is lower than many of the programmers working for Amazon
Also the idea that current system is " built on theft by the richest" is just asinine and ridiculous
I'm not confusing the two, I am fully aware of the methods the rich use generate their wealth while not contributing any of it back via taxes or any form typically.
Bezos wealth has doubled during the pandemic. As we discuss the pandemic pushing people into poverty, do you genuinely think it's asinine to judge the current system but not him?
I'd be interested in a UBI that is funded only by fiat, as a new tool for the Fed. Essentially giving the Federal Reserve the ability to set both interest rates, and UBI rates to optimally stimulate growth and employment, and manage inflation.
Ahh yes, the moronic modern monetary policy of money printer go brrrrrr
Where people seem to believe we can just create new currency from thin air in infinite quantity and it will have no negative effects
This will lead the US losing its status as a World Reserve Currency, this will devalue the dollar, and at some point cause the US to have to issue a new US Dollar replacing the old one and wiping out all savings, investments, etc.
but Socialist never do have a good grasp on economics
This is clearly a rude, and incorrect characterization of my post and position. If, Ubi was a tool of the Federal reserve, obviously the Ubi produced would be held in check to the point before which it negatively affected inflation.
Islam has solved this problem over 1400 years ago. Zakat is a form of wealth tax that applies to money over a certain minimum amount. For currencies, it's 2.5%. So if you have $1M sitting in your bank account for 1 year, then by the end of the year you owe $25K to charity. Different percentages apply to other wealth/estate (like farm produce or cattle).
It's an extremely fair system, that does not punish people from making high wages (there is no income tax in Islam), and pushes people to invest into the economy. It also does not inherently cause inflation like today's fiat money. It's quite sad to see that humanity keeps refusing to learn from the past.
Wealth Taxes are just as bad if not worse than Wage/Income Taxes.
They have a massive destabilizing effect on the economy, especially if that wealth is tied up into stock of a company
Take for example the "great evil" of today Amazon and Jeff Bezos. If Bezo's was forced to liquidate say 2% of his ownership in Amazon to satisfy his wealth tax that would send the stock into a free fall wiping out many many times more than that in value. So not only does that make it hard to actually calculate the tax bill, over time that kill most investments, 401K's pensions, etc
Taxes on subjective wealth (i.e totaling all assets up based on "current market value") is a TERRIBLE system, and very unethical far more unethical than income based taxation
Islam's Zakat system provably works. Just read history.
> If Bezo's was forced to liquidate say 2% of his ownership in Amazon to satisfy his wealth tax
Except nothing I explained about Islam's Zakat laws force anyone to liquidate in the manner you're describing. Note I said cash money. Stocks are not cash money, and hence will not be taxed in the same way I explained. Ownership in companies is subject to things like debt, which will reduce the amount of money paid out.
Islam's Zakat is different from the wealth tax some leftists are trying to push today as you're describing.
Have any studies shown that UBI wouldn’t cause similar price increases to college tuition or housing prices have had with increased access to easy credit?
As someone who dislikes fiat currency, but is also in a place to benefit from it, UBI has always seemed bonkers to me. The MMT idea that fiat is infinite seems to only work if foresight is perfect and the ultimate cause of failure is known ahead of time (certainly Weimar Germany and Venezuela didn’t think they would inflate themselves into crisis).
No worries guys. The left has this covered. Just about any day now I am sure all the Hollywood celebrities, tech execs and progressive politicians will be donating to keep everyone afloat.
So they want us to believe socialism is the solution, after goverment interventios have broken the economy. And many people believe it. They finally found their lever to make people compliant.
Good luck everybody, and consider buying some Bitcoin.
It may be common knowledge that the wealthy have done disproportionately well during the pandemic, but much fewer are agreed
or aware that that is largely a consequence of the government's/Fed's response.
My prediction is that before this is all said and done, far more people are going to be killed by the economic fallout of bad reactions to Covid than the disease itself.
Many people here are extremely privileged and can work remotely and haven’t been hit by the real despair many families in the real world are feeling. So many people don’t realize that not every job can be done over Zoom.
And it seems destined to get worse as the “never let a good crisis go to waste” mentality is going to go into overdrive next year as elitists around the world are going to try and ram through their power grabs that will make our current dystopia look like the good old days.
We (meaning most governments responding to the crisis) should have either 1. implemented and enforced severe, effective mass quarantine, causing a brief acute economic loss, but quickly beating the virus, or 2. ignored the virus and avoided the economic loss, accepting the cost of massive sickness and death.
Yet, somehow, we all managed to 3. implement half-assed, unenforced stay-at-home "orders" and business closures with tons of exceptions and loopholes. This resulted in both major economic harm and widespread sickness and death. It's almost as if we're trying to make the worst decisions possible.
The only reason why people in tech still have jobs (and why SV hasn’t blown up) is because the c-suite is getting rich off of stock market. When that party ends (likely in February/March timeframe), there will be a depression and civil unrest.
We’ve already had civil unrests this year in the middle of a pandemic. When people start getting laid off it’s going to add fuel to that fire. Government has already blown its load in terms of monetary and fiscal options. I especially fear for what could go down in EU. They cannot sustain another debt crisis. We are ripe for a rapidly deteriorating global financial crisis.
Interesting. I'm not sure I agree and for one reason: the Western governments have essentially shown throughout the past couple of decades, and especially in the past year, that they will do almost anything to keep the rich getting richer.
They're 100% not going to allow class consciousness to form again, as we saw the beginnings of in the Occupy Wall Street era, so there's some risk of them manufacturing further racial grief to keep the plebs at one another's necks but the can't let that escalate to the point where it'd threaten the bottom line either.
So much easier to maintain the strategy of demoralization, distraction and vapid consumerism.
> is because the c-suite is getting rich off of stock market.
> When that party ends (likely in February/March timeframe)
Well, if you are so confident, you could get rich too. Buy some puts or short stock then.
The reason people in tech still have jobs is that _we can work from home_. As long as work is getting done and stuff is getting shipped, companies are fine. The only that are hurting are the ones where you need people together in some capacity.
Stock market speculation is not even a variable here. Sure it helps their portfolio, but that has little bearing on whether or not we still have jobs.
Completely anecdotal, but while I work in tech, most of my family remains working in trades. Back in March we (I help out where I can) were all in a panic because we assumed discretionary income spending would immediately dry up due to the incoming recession — they are very much working class people, and will be in deep trouble if work dries up.
But the opposite has happened, apparently _a lot_ of people decided now is the time to remodel/improve their home, and the family business is booked _months_ in advance. Furthermore, customers also assume that business must be low, and are aghast when we tell them that "No, work cannot start next week, does late February work?". At the moment their biggest issue is finding enough skilled labor to meet demand, and excruciatingly slow permitting process.
We're still extremely wary with how this economy is playing out, and continue to plan for the worst. I still worry for them a lot because, well Covid, but safety protocols and N95 masks were the norm before the virus took hold.
I think it’s best to think of the crisis as having a disruptive effect, not only a downward or depressive one. Some sectors have been completely gutted, live events for example. Others suffer from second order effects like dry cleaning. And as you point out, for others business is booming. The source of all of it is disruption and upheaval.
Yeah, I went to buy some materials from home depot for a patio project this past summer and discovered they were having trouble keeping up with bulk deliveries (e.g. crushed stone or bricks), because apparently everyone and their mothers had _also_ decided to do renovation or yard/patio work while stuck at home.
Anecdotally, I see the same. No relations in the home improvement business or anything related, but the number of small contractors moving through the neighborhood doing all sized job is insane.
We're no different, my wife completely redecorated the main level of our home. It was all things we wanted to do but were putting off. I guess being home 24/7 pushed us to action to improve the space.
Just follow the HD and LOW tickers. They had an incredible volume ever since the pandemic started.
Which makes sense. Many people still have their jobs and income. But now are spending more time than ever inside their own houses. Not traveling, and for the most part, not dining out or otherwise spending money elsewhere.
So it makes sense that, if you are in the home remodeling business, you are seeing lots of activity. Also why USPS, UPS and Fedex are overloaded. And the reason PC parts are rarer than gold. TVs flew off the (virtual) shelves on Black Friday. And so on.
The problem is: many people did lose their income. So on one hand you see an incredible influx of customers remodeling homes and spending money on superfluous things, on the other hand you see people becoming homeless, or relying on food banks for the first time in their lives.
This is not like a recession. Some activities have essentially stopped, other are on overdrive. This will create an enormous imbalance, which could bring a recession (long predicted) even after COVID is done. Assuming we can get rid of it.
My prediction is that we're not going to see a recession after COVID is done. Interest rates are going to stay low/go even lower in order to goose the economy into "recovery". The activities that are in overdrive will slow down as money is pulled from them and redirected elsewhere.
I am (unusually!) an optimist here, based on current vaccine status: I think the second half of 2021 will be a period of exceptional economic growth. I don't know how anyone below the poverty line is supposed to wait that long to draw a paycheck again though.
I'm seeing a lot of municipal and state services and even private sector license-like approvals exacerbating the demand for people that are already approved.
Yeah it is really hard to see what the market is really signaling, because the market can't correct itself with more entrants because pandemic restrictives absolutely have slowed down the gatekeepers.
But yeah, after a certain while you can't put your life on hold. Look up the top killers in the 1600s, all sorts of phantom and misnamed ailments that could get you at any time! Note, this isn't a post about ignoring the pandemic, only that the idea of people being poor and twiddling thumbs in their homes until the bread line opens up again is just completely wrong.
I supply natural stone to customers in 10 states and am building a custom home for myself and family.
The construction business is BOOMING at least in the Midwest.
Lumber costs are sky high. Most other subs (plumbing, roofing, siding etc.) are booked beyond what they can handle.
We had our best year at our business in it's 21 year existence.
Can confirm. Was going to do a little DIY job at home and went to go price out some wood and dry wall. Just about had a heart attack when I saw 2x4's were now $6 a pop!!
I know this has been a double edge sword since demand is sky high but a lot of the supply side suppliers are relying on China and they've all but stopped shipping a LOT of stuff from a myriad of regions. So yeah, demand is high but I've also heard the supply side issues with China are compounding the issue.
Are you seeing/having any issues on the supply side yet?
Covid has had some surprising results. I tried to book a horseback riding lesson for my daughter as an outdoor birthday activity, and they struggled to fit us in. It’s not like it was the only place with horses nearby—This is rural Maryland—there are probably a dozen farms with horses within a 15 minute drive. Horseback riding just became a super popular activity during the pandemic.
Frigging permits. What an absolute joke. Goto city hall, pay money, wait weeks for a response - all to do something that should take minutes. Why doesn't our government pay someone to create an app to expedite the process. Also stop doing it at the city level and handle it at the state level.
That’s nice but as someone on the opposite end, I have been able to book appointments for home remodels in the next week or same week consistently. Basically every project we put aside because it didn’t matter so long as we had an office to retreat to has been done and tradesmen in my area are consistently free.
Most notably these are all high dollar jobs so it may be different on the low end.
The title and heading are wrong. The article and associated says Covid could push an additional 207 million people into extreme poverty, for a total of 1 billion.
Edit: the underlying UN study actually states 251 million additional people in poverty. Not sure where that 207 number in the article and many others coming from.
That is also the worst case scenario. The expected case is 44 million. It’s a tragedy regardless, but the headline is inaccurate clickbait
Well said, and I agree with that, thanks for correcting me.
Although what motivated me to comment that is the "could" in the headline is a presumption, there are many things that could happen, that's all I mean to say.
These (additional 207 million people pushed to extreme poverty) are the type of numbers that make me wonder why we are permitting the economic impact of lockdowns. If the side effects of the "lockdown cure" are going to be exorbitant poverty and starvation, doesn't that make the cure worse than the disease?
In addition to this article, UNICEF says[0] up to 132 million people will face starvation related to the lockdowns in 2020.
Just cursory searching yields the current COVID-19 death count at 1.6m[1] (a total which is disputed due to the "died from COVID-19" vs "died with COVID-19" distinction).
It seems like the starvation and poverty numbers from the lockdowns are likely to exceed any potential COVID-19 death count (even with no lockdowns).
And none of the aforementioned includes lockdown-related suicides, lack of medical care for existing medical conditions, and other impacts from being isolated or stuck inside.
Is this all emotional/fear-based/CYA decision making? I keep hearing "follow the science", but it doesn't seem like anybody is doing that at a basic life-saving or economic level. It feels like I'm going crazy, because none of the decisions being made make sense to me and are resulting in significant suffering and death.
It would be great to learn more if there are things I am overlooking here, but I've just been baffled lately.
Politicians are cynically deciding they’d rather not be blamed for deaths even if they’re categorically failing to protect the most vulnerable. So they’ve decided to obliterate small business and the working class by essentially outlawing work.
> are the type of numbers that make me wonder why we are permitting the economic impact of lockdowns.
Permitting? What do you propose be done? The economic impacts aren't primarily from civil direction -- there may be a margin that comes from that, but the vast majority of shifted behavior comes because people don't feel safe. You could wave a magic wand and drop ALL restrictions today and the economic gains would be marginal until people do credibly believe their safe.
The basic idea of a dichotomy between economics and epidemic is wrong. Economic impacts are an inevitable part of an uncontrolled epidemic.
> none of the aforementioned includes lockdown-related suicides
Are there numbers for lockdown related mental health impacts?
In general, health and well-being don't seem to suffer like you'd expect from economic difficulty:
> lack of medical care for existing medical conditions
This is actually one reason some civil direction to control covid cases is necessary. Having followed family members through multiple non-covid hospitalizations recently, I can tell you that the system isn't keeping margins of unused capacity for covid, it's struggling to keep up with demand imposed by it.
The especially frustrating thing about this is that the vast majority of the risk for serious illness from COVID is concentrated in a few high risk groups, in particular the elderly. Lockdowns and outside help targeted to those groups could probably get much wider buy-in and flatten the curve much more. Instead, while 23 year olds are forbidden from going to bars, there is still a person in his 70s bagging groceries at my local supermarket.
Mailing vitamin D pills to everyone in the country probably would also do more to reduce Covid deaths than the lockdowns (though might not be feasible for logistics/supply chain reasons).
Correction: the virus hasn't done anything to anyone who wasn't already at risk. This is a downvote worthy perspective because it reflects the truth of the situation while countering the narrative from the media.
Grand gestures by politicians seeking re-election and an opportunity to assert their authority is shoving people into poverty and the largest mental health crisis we've ever seen.
In March, lockdowns and temporary restrictions were appropriate because we had no idea of what we were dealing with. I mean cover on, Ford was ready to manufacturer 50k ventilators!
We know who's at risk at this point. Locking down the healthy is not helping the unhealthy (by choice or by no fault of their own, doesn't matter, everyone deserves to live).
Instead of providing assistance to those most at risk, government officials have capitalized on the opportunity to expand their control over individuals not at risk.
There’s so many assumptions and ignored aspects in this discussion. Whether it be the effectiveness of mitigation strategies, respect for individual rights, costs of lost years of education for 10s of millions of kids and how that affects their lives, cost to business that are destroyed forever more, health consequences due to shuttering inside, mental health consequences, the list goes on...
We’re told all of this is in our best interest by rich people who will not suffer much cost if any - most politicians may come out ahead financially.
I've seen anecdotal claims that attendance at restaurants and theaters has been way down even in states or regions that had no restrictions. Would be interesting to see some actual data for this.
If every bar and restaurant within 10 miles of me were 100% open for sit-down dining, I'd have eaten in exactly zero of them for the last 6 months, down from probably 50 or more visits plus 20 bar visits in the same period in 2019.
That's a poor anecdotal take on the point. What matters is that if the government makes it impossible, the possibility for everyone is zero, while it would be between 0 and maybe 50% without lockdowns. That's the difference between a business surviving and not.
More-or-less what happened here in Sweden, no lockdowns during the first wave, still most people wouldn't dare going out for eating and drinking. It eased up a little during summer with number of cases falling, after it picked up again in September there was a noticeable drop again without government intervention.
Then in November it was visible that without intervention cases would start to pile up and service business were still suffering due to low patronage, there is no way out of this and government intervention vs no intervention isn't the root cause of the downfall for the service industry, it's pretty clear.
> It would be more honest if predictions like this were mentioned alongside articles in the press that claim lockdowns are the only option we have.
What are the other options? For all of humanity's advancements, quarantine-like behavior is our best bet against novel diseases.
In fact, many governments only implemented half-assed "soft" lockdowns. They should have acted immediately and decisively. Lockdown early and hard, at the very first signs that this thing was becoming a pandemic. And don't let go until it's under control.
Instead, we got this lame lockdown-but-not-quite (places of worship open, are you serious?), no mask mandate, nothing. And as soon as things start to look better, reopen. Oops, bad again, close. And now are are only prolonging the suffering.
Developing countries are once again in a bad shape, but richer countries should know better. Treat this as a war, support your citizens. Even though large companies like airlines are important, most of the focus should have been towards small businesses and individuals. Also on PPE at the very beginning.
There is enough money in the developed world to help with the problem. Make some fewer F-35 (at 200M a pop) if need be. That's a lot of food and rent money.
The coronavirus is not entirely novel. Researchers report people who had a case of SARS-CoV-1 have t-cells that recognize SARS-CoV-2.
By the time the COVID-19 was recognized as a distinct virus, it was already too late to do anything about it, except to start distributing Vitamin D and other useful nutrient to the vulnerable.
> There is enough money in the developed world to help with the problem
Money is a useful fiction, nothing more. Money allows people to trade their time. Telling large numbers of people they can’t do anything with their time destroys exponentially more wealth than it protects.
That's not true though. Even if the government does nothing you still have people altering their behavior out of fear. More online shopping, working from home, less traveling, activities outside the home. Looking at Sweden where they didn't lock down, I would say that seems a very large part of the change in economic activity.
And because the virus tends to get more out of control, this change is magnified compared to when the government takes action. Is it really better for the economy over the long term to lockdown or not? I don't think we know the answer one way or the other.
To take the extreme example. China was the epicenter of the pandemic, took the strongest government action and snuffed it out. Now our economy suffers while theirs does much better. Maybe our problem is we couldn't be as extreme as them, we don't have a hope of eliminating it in our countries in the West through lockdowns.
In Maryland there is a new arm of police call the "Covid Compliance Unit". People that disobey (by having parties with lots of people) are arrested by the CCU.
Much like a club owner with egregious fire code violations could be arrested. Or someone who stores illegal explosives in a warehouse. Or someone who drives at at excessive speeds on the highway.
Sorry, I didn't realize you reside deep, deep inside nonsense conspiracy land. How does your made-up world view explain the extra 2,500 deaths everyday in the US? 5G?
Every year the flu causes (or caused, until this year) tens of thousands of deaths which theoretically could have been prevented (or really, postponed, since no one lives forever) by bringing human social and economic relations to a standstill. Wherever one falls on this question, it's extraordinarily obtuse to focus solely on the fact that people are dying from COVID and advocate any measures necessary to reduce the number without taking heed of the broader risks of doing so.
I feel like it would be better if we just tagged poverty as being off-topic to Hacker News. The vast vast majority of people in technology do not currently experience poverty in any real sense. The same tired and completely unproductive discussion plays out every time. You have:
* The "I was broke once and I made it" crowd. They made it out so everyone else should be able to. This creates a predictable argument of one side asserting privilege is a thing and the other side taking it as an insult to their self-worth and industriousness. Both are right, both are wrong, nobody learns anything.
* The "Policy" or "Solutioning" threads. Usually started with little nuance or specifics, or with an idea that is so large you'll have to go 10 replies deep to have a chance to get down to anyone's personal beliefs or life experiences as to why they believe how they do.
* The "I myself am doing badly because I can't afford a 7 figure home in silicon valley" threads. The arguments are one side saying they're out of touch with "real" people and the other empathizing with the lack of security that comes with not owning a home. Housing discussions follow which I would've hoped are as boring to others as they are by now to me.
Were we to emphasise having productive or at least different conversations, we might try for what I call the "missing" threads, IE the ones that don't happen but should. Threads from:
* People who had to go to a food bank lately.
* People on SNAP, Social Security, Disability.
* People currently or in the past outside the western world who have experience with poverty.
This may not be the demographic that goes to HN, but if you take time to listen to people trapped in poverty for even 10 minutes and BELIEVE them, you might learn something really interesting.
Go give $100 to a local or international food bank now. They need it desperately. Instead of discussing policy on here go look at the lines of people who are currently hungry in the first world:
Would imagine a lot of ppl on here are products on the great recession and into tech which kind of makes us a unique group. We graduated, had zero prospects, felt like we were going to be a failure, tech boomed and so did we.
>I feel like it would be better if we just tagged poverty as being off-topic to Hacker News.
I understand where what's underlying this sentiment, but "you don't get to talk about this subject unless you've personally experienced it" is ultimately unproductive at best.
If for nothing else, when it comes to poverty in particular it's worth keeping in mind that educated people earning middle or higher incomes make up the most generous and most frequent donors to charity. "Shut up but pay up" doesn't read all that well.
That reading was totally not my intention - go ahead and talk about it by all means. But when I see the same completely unuseful threads time after time amongst people who have pocket change that can seriously help lives, it becomes an erudite ivory tower academic argument that doesn’t have much empathy for people who are in poverty. Note I gave none of my own “qualifications” here.
If you took my post to mean “shut up but pay up” then I don’t really find there’s much point in conversing further.
That's how I read your post too. I don't see why we should not talk about the problem because we haven't experienced it ourselves. If anything, what we share might develop our empathy for the people who are affected. Would you rather we just turn a blind eye to it?
It feels like the underlying message you’re trying to get to is:
When people who have never experienced poverty first-hand jump in to the conversation, there is a real danger that they will spout the same unhelpful misconceptions and argue that they are solutions. This can set the conversation back significantly while real lives are at stake.
On that point, I would agree. Such as “Those in poverty just have to work harder”, which IMO is one of the absolute worst and most damaging mindsets.
I'm a freelancer, I also have imposter syndrome. I've been using Vue for 3 years, and laravel since 2013. My depression and anxiety over current events, turning forty mixed with some burnout has led to a very rough six months. We had to use gofund me for the rent for the past two months. We had to get on SNAP.
An old friend wanted help with wordpress (I hate wordpress), but had to take it. I jumped at $30/hour for 5 hours of work, just so we could put gas in the car, and get a few gifts for our toddler's for Christmas.
Not everybody on HN is doing great making 6-7 figure incomes. My best year, I maybe did 70k. My hourly is $40, generally as a freelance dev, even though others get $100, I've not once been able to secure that kind of pay. At 41, I'm getting a bit frustrated with the life, I had dreams of building a SaaS but just getting out of bed is so hard lately.
Or I just want to spend every waking minute w/ my kids, cause I have this dread that Covid will take me, and I'll miss out on valuable moments with them. My wife's never had a depressed day in her life, until this year, she's on anti-depressants now, her mom died in August from cancer. Usually she'd keep me out of my depression, now I have to find a way to pull her out of hers.
I'm sure there's more people in this thread who are in the demographic, than you think are. Lots of people go to HN and Reddit startup threads to get ideas to break out of poverty. (That's why I learned to code in the first place).
213 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 238 ms ] threadI've tried to eat out more often, even leaving less or no tips in order to feel more incentivized to not eat at home.
The only meaningful help is broad scale fiscal policy support.
> I'd be willing to pay more taxes to help the economy, but most people are against this
They are against this because paying more taxes does nothing to "help" the economy. Where do you think tax money goes? It doesn't go to people's bank accounts to pay for rent, groceries, car payments, utility bills etc. or any of the places that would directly contribute to the economy.
> In the mean time I do my part by eating out more often and visiting small businesses.
And as already discussed below - you are also screwing over the employees at those businesses. Quite literally costing them money they could make by serving someone who will tip... so they can, you know, pay for rent and contribute to the economy.
Not to open this argument but it's not the patron's job to ensure the staff are paid appropriately. If servers don't want to run the risk of not being paid at least minimum wage, they should ensure their conditions of employment guarantee it and the business should reflect it in their prices.
$30 Hamburger, or $25 Hamburger + $5 tip.
With the latter, you at least get to decide how much to tip - and if you received awful service, you have some recourse/feedback mechanism.
So you're likely hurting both the worker and employer, and making it more complicated for both of them.
Specifics (basic cash wage value, etc) vary by state.
Er, not serve? Or a degraded service which entails what? Begrudging looks?
Always a chuckle to behold America's fetish for tipping.
How it should be and how it is are immensely detached, I think we can all agree on.
Costco's net margin is ~2.6%, so the other 97.4% is leaving Costco for labor (notably well-paid for grocery stores) and whoever their suppliers are. Are they substantially different from your normal grocery store's suppliers? For that matter, is your normal grocery store itself different from Costco in some structural way that is meaningful to you? Perhaps you were previously shopping at a coop like San Francisco's Rainbow Groceries or New York's Park Slope Food Coop?
If you live in the US this is a real jerk move. You're talking about how you're getting richer, but then aren't willing to tip the service worker making less than minimum wage?
Right now I understand that we need to do our part to help small businesses, so I'm making an effort and tricking my brain into eating out by not tipping. This is where I want to put my money: I think it's my responsibility if small businesses are going to survive, I don't think it's my responsibility if workers are not paid well.
This doesn't really make sense. Without tipping (expected nationally), the cost of labor would just have to be priced directly into the food. Instead of a $15 burger, it would be $20.
If you don't like to spend money on dining out, fine, but it has little to do with tipping and more to do with being frugal.
So basically it does make sense because it is easier if the price is the total cost.
Actually, it would cost more than just standard price + tip as you funnel the money into the business first before it hits the employee's bank account.
> Right now I understand that we need to do our part to help small businesses, so I'm making an effort and tricking my brain into eating out by not tipping
This logic is absurd. Both small businesses and employees of small businesses are being crushed right now. Support them both or don't use their services.
You deciding to eat out is consuming time from the wait staff (who often tips out bussers and kitchen staff too). That time could have been spent serving another table that decides to tip.
You are literally taking money away from small business employees by continuing this behavior. You are punishing them for serving you a meal. How is that appropriate?
Rationalize all you want, but you’re acting like a huge asshole.
If you are morally opposed to tipping, eat takeout or at a counter serve restaurant.
1. Standard minimum wage 2. Some value less than minimum wage + tips
If the employee doesn't break minimum wage by adding their wage+tips, the employer has to make them whole. And then likely cut their hours and force them to look for other work.
No they don't, because what are you going to do about it? Hire a lawyer on your minimum wage salary (assuming you even know you're getting cheated)?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Wage_the...
https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-bigger-problem-th...
To everyone: please tip. It is in fact very likely that any given restaurant is not and would not make up the difference in pay for an under-tipped employee.
Your sources do not support this claim.
>Survey research shows that well over two-thirds of low-wage workers have been the victims of wage theft.
"Over two-thirds" means you are more likely than not to eat at a restaurant that has cheated its employees.
> "Over two-thirds" means you are more likely than not to eat at a restaurant that has cheated its employees.
No. It doesn't. It means that, in their entire lifetime as employees of any number of employers, two-thirds of employees, at least once, experienced wage theft in some form.
That's a much different statement and says nothing at all about whether those employees were robbed of overtime, asked to work for free, or their employers claimed tip credits for tips the employees didn't receive.
These are all examples of "cheating employees", I'm glad we agree.
You've convinced me that you are trolling. You haven't addressed any arguments or provided any meaningful support to your pretty extreme claims. Your proposed solution, even if it were effective, would exclude large numbers of non-tipped employees.
Even if, as you assert without evidence, the various labor boards around the country are ineffective, providing them with the funding that would otherwise go to tipped employees would be a much better solution than tipping. It would simultaneously remove resources from thieving employers, make them easier to identify, make it harder for them to find labor, and provide greater resources for those trying to stop them.
In fact, here, have some more evidence, I'm eager to find out what's wrong these these sources:
http://wagejustice.org/wage-theft-facts/
https://unprotectedworkers.org/index.php/broken_laws/index
https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti...
https://money.cnn.com/2017/12/18/news/economy/wage-theft-wor...
It’s also not my job to disprove your unsupported claim by scouring sources you’ve just googled. Even if I stipulated that your sources are credible and true, which they may be, you are making massive leaps in logic in order to support your claim and not even attempting to explain how you got there or addressing my very direct criticisms.
That I am “uncomfortable” talking about this is just a lazy and ironic ad hominem argument. I’ve been talking about it. You’ve been avoiding that conversation. I’m fine talking about it. I’m just not willing to talk to you anymore.
Which it won't do as long as people are tipping, in fact, entirely new industries are being created with deliberate, engineered pressure to expand tipping culture into them.
There's a very good argument that if you are opposed to tipping culture, as well as taking every opportunity to oppose public policy which supports and accommodated it, you ought not participate in it, which only reinforces and perpetuates it.
Not gonna be a very popular hill to die on
In places that have mandated tip sharing, the same people tipping the customer-facing workers (and, again, this isn't "small-business" specific; chain restaurants are no different than independents here), in places that don't, no one does. Tipping culture is more industry-focussed than scale-of-business focussed.
Tipping culture exists as an excuse for service workers to not only be grossly underpaid, but also to be compensated unequally in ways that would violate nondiscrimination laws if employers did it directly.
There's nothing special about small business, it's not like big chain corporate table-service restaurants (or, say, massive gig economy firms) don't underpay just as badly as any small business.
Until I visited the US I'd never tipped in my life.
Tipping is a poor substitute for decent wages.
It's also very awkward. I remember going to a wedding with an open bar - drinks were free but then people were getting out cash anyway to tip the bartender even tho no payment was involved? It's very bizarre if you haven't grown up with it.
But if you order some elaborate drink that takes time and skill to craft - you should tip as a way of saying "thanks for the effort". That was the original idea of tipping, after all - ensuring, measuring and providing direct feedback of service quality.
Have you ever stepped back and had a look at some of these paradigms you've been conditioned to adhere to?
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/07/18/the-risks-of-ke...
Good for you but that's not how you make an equitable society.
Equal opportunity, not equal outcomes
There is no bidirectional trust with corporations: assume you could get fucked at every moment.
When trying to convince a corporation (aka a group of people) to give me money I want to be evaluated on and compensated for my objective impact. Subjective evaluations (which can include bias, even the trendy intentional but liberally acceptable race and gender bias) are toxic and can be gamed.
I was in a rough situation and took it on the chin. I didn’t beg for money, I begged for the chance to work. Very different and represents opposing work ethics.
That response, that gem of a response, perfectly encapsulates the attitude that makes millions of Americans hate you. Hint: it isn't them.
0 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeles...
- Are the results false? Would a country lie on the numbers? It looks like the US estimation was misleading halved in two[1], the real numbers paint a much different picture placing the US much higher than any European countries.
- Are the results misleading? For example, I see that different years are listed for different countries (2012 for France, 2019 for the US), or that Germany's numbers include "around 375,000 asylum seekers and refugees in temporary accommodation".
- Is reality misleading? For example, it could be that homeless in Europe are taken care of and thus you don't see them much, whereas in the US they are all over the streets because there are no aids. Or it could be that most homeless people in Europe don't live in the cities and are thus out of sight.
[1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-07-06/why-is-ho...
It is a fact that if you grow up near a financial cliff, people will fall off of it. That is not a productive way to conduct a society. It wastes productivity.
[1] This helps me build connections as well. For example, I fixed a doctor's laptop, and she has helped me with various things because of it.
[2] I want to move to another nearby country. Cheaper and nicer apartments, and the pay is the same because I work remotely.
In your world, I should just go fuck myself for having that medical issue though, right? Get off your high horse of toxicity.
Could you afford privatized health care on UBI along with basic living expenses?
If the amount we’re talking is 2k/m and in the USA I bet not.
It is concerning that you feel the need to berate a random person who made a comment you just happen to disagree with or misunderstood.
You don’t know me, but I’ll share an ancedote. I suffered a life changing health problem and the advice that I was given is “two things happen to sick people: they get better or they die”. The responsibility to adapt is on you. Not society
Either way, that being stated, further discussion would most certainly be fruitless.
I can not back such a system as that is tantamount to labor theft and is unethical
Now if you want to base a UBI on something else beside Income based taxation, Such has a Georgist Single land value tax then that would be a more ethical system
Amazon is a perfect example of this, you want to protect Bezos against the workers in shitty conditions that are surveilled and actively antagonized?
Also the idea that current system is " built on theft by the richest" is just asinine and ridiculous
Bezos wealth has doubled during the pandemic. As we discuss the pandemic pushing people into poverty, do you genuinely think it's asinine to judge the current system but not him?
Where people seem to believe we can just create new currency from thin air in infinite quantity and it will have no negative effects
This will lead the US losing its status as a World Reserve Currency, this will devalue the dollar, and at some point cause the US to have to issue a new US Dollar replacing the old one and wiping out all savings, investments, etc.
but Socialist never do have a good grasp on economics
It's an extremely fair system, that does not punish people from making high wages (there is no income tax in Islam), and pushes people to invest into the economy. It also does not inherently cause inflation like today's fiat money. It's quite sad to see that humanity keeps refusing to learn from the past.
They have a massive destabilizing effect on the economy, especially if that wealth is tied up into stock of a company
Take for example the "great evil" of today Amazon and Jeff Bezos. If Bezo's was forced to liquidate say 2% of his ownership in Amazon to satisfy his wealth tax that would send the stock into a free fall wiping out many many times more than that in value. So not only does that make it hard to actually calculate the tax bill, over time that kill most investments, 401K's pensions, etc
Taxes on subjective wealth (i.e totaling all assets up based on "current market value") is a TERRIBLE system, and very unethical far more unethical than income based taxation
> If Bezo's was forced to liquidate say 2% of his ownership in Amazon to satisfy his wealth tax
Except nothing I explained about Islam's Zakat laws force anyone to liquidate in the manner you're describing. Note I said cash money. Stocks are not cash money, and hence will not be taxed in the same way I explained. Ownership in companies is subject to things like debt, which will reduce the amount of money paid out.
Islam's Zakat is different from the wealth tax some leftists are trying to push today as you're describing.
I assure, the UBI is mutable when the people in charge want to change it. Or when we run out of money.
As someone who dislikes fiat currency, but is also in a place to benefit from it, UBI has always seemed bonkers to me. The MMT idea that fiat is infinite seems to only work if foresight is perfect and the ultimate cause of failure is known ahead of time (certainly Weimar Germany and Venezuela didn’t think they would inflate themselves into crisis).
FTFY
My prediction is that before this is all said and done, far more people are going to be killed by the economic fallout of bad reactions to Covid than the disease itself.
Many people here are extremely privileged and can work remotely and haven’t been hit by the real despair many families in the real world are feeling. So many people don’t realize that not every job can be done over Zoom.
And it seems destined to get worse as the “never let a good crisis go to waste” mentality is going to go into overdrive next year as elitists around the world are going to try and ram through their power grabs that will make our current dystopia look like the good old days.
Yet, somehow, we all managed to 3. implement half-assed, unenforced stay-at-home "orders" and business closures with tons of exceptions and loopholes. This resulted in both major economic harm and widespread sickness and death. It's almost as if we're trying to make the worst decisions possible.
Substantiate this, please.
They're 100% not going to allow class consciousness to form again, as we saw the beginnings of in the Occupy Wall Street era, so there's some risk of them manufacturing further racial grief to keep the plebs at one another's necks but the can't let that escalate to the point where it'd threaten the bottom line either.
So much easier to maintain the strategy of demoralization, distraction and vapid consumerism.
> When that party ends (likely in February/March timeframe)
Well, if you are so confident, you could get rich too. Buy some puts or short stock then.
The reason people in tech still have jobs is that _we can work from home_. As long as work is getting done and stuff is getting shipped, companies are fine. The only that are hurting are the ones where you need people together in some capacity.
Stock market speculation is not even a variable here. Sure it helps their portfolio, but that has little bearing on whether or not we still have jobs.
But the opposite has happened, apparently _a lot_ of people decided now is the time to remodel/improve their home, and the family business is booked _months_ in advance. Furthermore, customers also assume that business must be low, and are aghast when we tell them that "No, work cannot start next week, does late February work?". At the moment their biggest issue is finding enough skilled labor to meet demand, and excruciatingly slow permitting process.
We're still extremely wary with how this economy is playing out, and continue to plan for the worst. I still worry for them a lot because, well Covid, but safety protocols and N95 masks were the norm before the virus took hold.
We're no different, my wife completely redecorated the main level of our home. It was all things we wanted to do but were putting off. I guess being home 24/7 pushed us to action to improve the space.
Which makes sense. Many people still have their jobs and income. But now are spending more time than ever inside their own houses. Not traveling, and for the most part, not dining out or otherwise spending money elsewhere.
So it makes sense that, if you are in the home remodeling business, you are seeing lots of activity. Also why USPS, UPS and Fedex are overloaded. And the reason PC parts are rarer than gold. TVs flew off the (virtual) shelves on Black Friday. And so on.
The problem is: many people did lose their income. So on one hand you see an incredible influx of customers remodeling homes and spending money on superfluous things, on the other hand you see people becoming homeless, or relying on food banks for the first time in their lives.
This is not like a recession. Some activities have essentially stopped, other are on overdrive. This will create an enormous imbalance, which could bring a recession (long predicted) even after COVID is done. Assuming we can get rid of it.
But if I've learned anything this year is that the market (and worse yet, the stock market) tends to overcorrect.
In the particular case of the US, interest rates can't really get much lower, and they have been low for years. Not many levers left to pull.
I'm seeing a lot of municipal and state services and even private sector license-like approvals exacerbating the demand for people that are already approved.
Yeah it is really hard to see what the market is really signaling, because the market can't correct itself with more entrants because pandemic restrictives absolutely have slowed down the gatekeepers.
But yeah, after a certain while you can't put your life on hold. Look up the top killers in the 1600s, all sorts of phantom and misnamed ailments that could get you at any time! Note, this isn't a post about ignoring the pandemic, only that the idea of people being poor and twiddling thumbs in their homes until the bread line opens up again is just completely wrong.
Lumber costs are sky high. Most other subs (plumbing, roofing, siding etc.) are booked beyond what they can handle.
We had our best year at our business in it's 21 year existence.
Can confirm. Was going to do a little DIY job at home and went to go price out some wood and dry wall. Just about had a heart attack when I saw 2x4's were now $6 a pop!!
I know this has been a double edge sword since demand is sky high but a lot of the supply side suppliers are relying on China and they've all but stopped shipping a LOT of stuff from a myriad of regions. So yeah, demand is high but I've also heard the supply side issues with China are compounding the issue.
Are you seeing/having any issues on the supply side yet?
Supply side issues are mostly logistical in nature:
- low low low supply of containers
- lower than normal vessels on the water
- getting container bookings is 3-4-5 weeks out.
- factory workers testing COVID positive = random shutdowns, therefore random delays
Most notably these are all high dollar jobs so it may be different on the low end.
Edit: the underlying UN study actually states 251 million additional people in poverty. Not sure where that 207 number in the article and many others coming from.
That is also the worst case scenario. The expected case is 44 million. It’s a tragedy regardless, but the headline is inaccurate clickbait
extreme poverty is a well-defined term, it's not emotive language.
Although what motivated me to comment that is the "could" in the headline is a presumption, there are many things that could happen, that's all I mean to say.
In addition to this article, UNICEF says[0] up to 132 million people will face starvation related to the lockdowns in 2020.
Just cursory searching yields the current COVID-19 death count at 1.6m[1] (a total which is disputed due to the "died from COVID-19" vs "died with COVID-19" distinction).
It seems like the starvation and poverty numbers from the lockdowns are likely to exceed any potential COVID-19 death count (even with no lockdowns).
And none of the aforementioned includes lockdown-related suicides, lack of medical care for existing medical conditions, and other impacts from being isolated or stuck inside.
Is this all emotional/fear-based/CYA decision making? I keep hearing "follow the science", but it doesn't seem like anybody is doing that at a basic life-saving or economic level. It feels like I'm going crazy, because none of the decisions being made make sense to me and are resulting in significant suffering and death.
It would be great to learn more if there are things I am overlooking here, but I've just been baffled lately.
[0] https://data.unicef.org/resources/sofi-2020/
[1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Permitting? What do you propose be done? The economic impacts aren't primarily from civil direction -- there may be a margin that comes from that, but the vast majority of shifted behavior comes because people don't feel safe. You could wave a magic wand and drop ALL restrictions today and the economic gains would be marginal until people do credibly believe their safe.
The basic idea of a dichotomy between economics and epidemic is wrong. Economic impacts are an inevitable part of an uncontrolled epidemic.
> none of the aforementioned includes lockdown-related suicides
Are there numbers for lockdown related mental health impacts?
In general, health and well-being don't seem to suffer like you'd expect from economic difficulty:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090928172530.h...
https://www.history.com/news/great-depression-economy-life-e...
> lack of medical care for existing medical conditions
This is actually one reason some civil direction to control covid cases is necessary. Having followed family members through multiple non-covid hospitalizations recently, I can tell you that the system isn't keeping margins of unused capacity for covid, it's struggling to keep up with demand imposed by it.
Mailing vitamin D pills to everyone in the country probably would also do more to reduce Covid deaths than the lockdowns (though might not be feasible for logistics/supply chain reasons).
Grand gestures by politicians seeking re-election and an opportunity to assert their authority is shoving people into poverty and the largest mental health crisis we've ever seen.
In March, lockdowns and temporary restrictions were appropriate because we had no idea of what we were dealing with. I mean cover on, Ford was ready to manufacturer 50k ventilators!
We know who's at risk at this point. Locking down the healthy is not helping the unhealthy (by choice or by no fault of their own, doesn't matter, everyone deserves to live).
Instead of providing assistance to those most at risk, government officials have capitalized on the opportunity to expand their control over individuals not at risk.
The reaction to the virus by the government does that.
It would be more honest if predictions like this were mentioned alongside articles in the press that claim lockdowns are the only option we have.
We’re told all of this is in our best interest by rich people who will not suffer much cost if any - most politicians may come out ahead financially.
Zero government influence in the above paragraph.
Then in November it was visible that without intervention cases would start to pile up and service business were still suffering due to low patronage, there is no way out of this and government intervention vs no intervention isn't the root cause of the downfall for the service industry, it's pretty clear.
What are the other options? For all of humanity's advancements, quarantine-like behavior is our best bet against novel diseases.
In fact, many governments only implemented half-assed "soft" lockdowns. They should have acted immediately and decisively. Lockdown early and hard, at the very first signs that this thing was becoming a pandemic. And don't let go until it's under control.
Instead, we got this lame lockdown-but-not-quite (places of worship open, are you serious?), no mask mandate, nothing. And as soon as things start to look better, reopen. Oops, bad again, close. And now are are only prolonging the suffering.
Developing countries are once again in a bad shape, but richer countries should know better. Treat this as a war, support your citizens. Even though large companies like airlines are important, most of the focus should have been towards small businesses and individuals. Also on PPE at the very beginning.
There is enough money in the developed world to help with the problem. Make some fewer F-35 (at 200M a pop) if need be. That's a lot of food and rent money.
By the time the COVID-19 was recognized as a distinct virus, it was already too late to do anything about it, except to start distributing Vitamin D and other useful nutrient to the vulnerable.
> There is enough money in the developed world to help with the problem
Money is a useful fiction, nothing more. Money allows people to trade their time. Telling large numbers of people they can’t do anything with their time destroys exponentially more wealth than it protects.
And because the virus tends to get more out of control, this change is magnified compared to when the government takes action. Is it really better for the economy over the long term to lockdown or not? I don't think we know the answer one way or the other.
To take the extreme example. China was the epicenter of the pandemic, took the strongest government action and snuffed it out. Now our economy suffers while theirs does much better. Maybe our problem is we couldn't be as extreme as them, we don't have a hope of eliminating it in our countries in the West through lockdowns.
* The "I was broke once and I made it" crowd. They made it out so everyone else should be able to. This creates a predictable argument of one side asserting privilege is a thing and the other side taking it as an insult to their self-worth and industriousness. Both are right, both are wrong, nobody learns anything.
* The "Policy" or "Solutioning" threads. Usually started with little nuance or specifics, or with an idea that is so large you'll have to go 10 replies deep to have a chance to get down to anyone's personal beliefs or life experiences as to why they believe how they do.
* The "I myself am doing badly because I can't afford a 7 figure home in silicon valley" threads. The arguments are one side saying they're out of touch with "real" people and the other empathizing with the lack of security that comes with not owning a home. Housing discussions follow which I would've hoped are as boring to others as they are by now to me.
Were we to emphasise having productive or at least different conversations, we might try for what I call the "missing" threads, IE the ones that don't happen but should. Threads from:
* People who had to go to a food bank lately.
* People on SNAP, Social Security, Disability.
* People currently or in the past outside the western world who have experience with poverty.
This may not be the demographic that goes to HN, but if you take time to listen to people trapped in poverty for even 10 minutes and BELIEVE them, you might learn something really interesting.
Go give $100 to a local or international food bank now. They need it desperately. Instead of discussing policy on here go look at the lines of people who are currently hungry in the first world:
https://www.reuters.com/news/picture/long-lines-at-food-bank...
https://thehill.com/policy/finance/527462-long-lines-form-at...
You, on hacker news, can afford it.
Thank you for the reminder about this simple action for good. It was trivial to find my local food banks, and took only a couple minutes to give.
(I used charitynavigator.org to decide between a couple of local options.)
I understand where what's underlying this sentiment, but "you don't get to talk about this subject unless you've personally experienced it" is ultimately unproductive at best.
If for nothing else, when it comes to poverty in particular it's worth keeping in mind that educated people earning middle or higher incomes make up the most generous and most frequent donors to charity. "Shut up but pay up" doesn't read all that well.
If you took my post to mean “shut up but pay up” then I don’t really find there’s much point in conversing further.
When people who have never experienced poverty first-hand jump in to the conversation, there is a real danger that they will spout the same unhelpful misconceptions and argue that they are solutions. This can set the conversation back significantly while real lives are at stake.
On that point, I would agree. Such as “Those in poverty just have to work harder”, which IMO is one of the absolute worst and most damaging mindsets.
An old friend wanted help with wordpress (I hate wordpress), but had to take it. I jumped at $30/hour for 5 hours of work, just so we could put gas in the car, and get a few gifts for our toddler's for Christmas.
Not everybody on HN is doing great making 6-7 figure incomes. My best year, I maybe did 70k. My hourly is $40, generally as a freelance dev, even though others get $100, I've not once been able to secure that kind of pay. At 41, I'm getting a bit frustrated with the life, I had dreams of building a SaaS but just getting out of bed is so hard lately.
Or I just want to spend every waking minute w/ my kids, cause I have this dread that Covid will take me, and I'll miss out on valuable moments with them. My wife's never had a depressed day in her life, until this year, she's on anti-depressants now, her mom died in August from cancer. Usually she'd keep me out of my depression, now I have to find a way to pull her out of hers.
I'm sure there's more people in this thread who are in the demographic, than you think are. Lots of people go to HN and Reddit startup threads to get ideas to break out of poverty. (That's why I learned to code in the first place).