The "Re-Opening" the Economy Thread

[GoCommiesGo]

5 minutes ago, EmirOfShmo said:

A lot of service industry jobs will never return. If you're over 50 you might be looking at some tough times getting rehired. 

How do the ~4-5M 2020 college grads who weren't in the work force count in the unemployment stats?

 

I think a lot of employers are going to leverage this situation to not rehire higher paid employees and backfill the position with cheaper labor. 

 

Anecdotally, my wife has a friend whos son graduated this year. He had a job offer to start immediately after graduation but was recently told they can't hire him. They want to hire him but can't afford to hire any new staff as they laid off existing staff. 

 

I'm not sure how that gets recorded by the BLS. 

[Corcaigh]

7 minutes ago, GoSkinsGo said:

 

Anecdotally, my wife has a friend whos son graduated this year. He had a job offer to start immediately after graduation but was recently told they can't hire him. They want to hire him but can't afford to hire any new staff as they laid off existing staff. 

 

I know a computer engineering grad who has been through five hours of interviews with two separate companies, and both want to hire, but they are dragging their feet about making an offer. 

[Corcaigh]

As Emir commented, companies are also using this as an ‘opportunity’ to reduce salaries of employees they perceive to be overpaid, I.e. highly experienced individual contributors whose salaries have grown over the years.

[Jumbo]

14 hours ago, PCS said:

Well on the local level,(Nevada),casinos are opening and in my small town area,boy are they. I understand all kinds of rules and guidelines have been set,but I'm unsure if crowd capacity is one of them. The casinos in town are jammed. Parking lots already around 75% full. And it's only near 6 p.m. on a Thursday. Yikes. 

 

 

same in wa state...wait till the bars get going

 

per participating in the "reopening" yes, in general,  being in open space around a large group of folks (a park or beach) is typically going to be less risky---usually by a fair margin---than  being in an enclosed space, including even the larger-seating venues

 

after typing it i realized this next goes off-topic a tad, but it flows from the previous comment and i think is worth putting in here and not to encourage any extended digression

 

of the four basic high-priority suggestions (distance/mask/wash-hands/don't touch face) i'd say the two most important in order and least vulnerable to being compromised by others are to not touch your face at all and to clean hands as often as workable in your outings

 

then when you get home, if you like using a little extra effort to increase safety, change out of those clothes in the doorway and bag them for laundry later or right to the washer, and the same after a shopping trip or other extended exposure In a  group of people if you have the energy/will

 

it's a fairly decent return for a rather minimal effort imo

 

 

[The Evil Genius]

Saw a stat the other day that projected an additional need for 3 million more nurses by 2028 to mainly care for the Boomer gen. 

 

If I was young again I'd definitely be looking towards those opportunities. Or even a blue collar trade that never will be not needed (electrician,  plumbing, etc). 

[skinfan2k]

3 hours ago, No Excuses said:

Rough back of the envelope calculations would tell that 11-15% of the jobs lost since the downturn were restored. Which isn't surprising since businesses in some parts of the country started to reopen at the beginning of May.

 

Even if we return back to 80%-90% of economic activity prior to the shutdown, that is still a deep recession. And it's entirely unclear at what point the post-shutdown recovery actually stalls, which is bound to happen.

Or it actually means that companies will be more efficient with less.  Maybe companies were hiring too many people. 

The worry should be as people are being brought back to their regular jobs in the office, how many jobs are going to be lost bc of lost revenues?

[The Evil Genius]

1 hour ago, skinfan2k said:

 

The worry should be as people are being brought back to their regular jobs in the office, how many jobs are going to be lost bc of lost revenues?

 

Can any of that be offset by not having ginormous work farms and allowing people to work remotely?

 

If anything, this crisis has shown that the American worker should have moved to remote work 10+ years ago.

Edited June 5, 2020 by The Evil Genius

[GoCommiesGo]

1 hour ago, skinfan2k said:

Or it actually means that companies will be more efficient with less.  Maybe companies were hiring too many people. 

The worry should be as people are being brought back to their regular jobs in the office, how many jobs are going to be lost bc of lost revenues?

 

In a lot of cases jobs are lost and the responsibilities consolidated on an individual without a pay increase. While cost per unit / individual drops revenue may remain consistent. That hurts the economy long term because you're increasing profit for the company without a corresponding earner and therefore removing disposable income from the economy. 

 

We are a consumption economy, we need consumers with the means to spend. We don't need a firm increasing net revenue at the cost of individual earners. 

[TD_washingtonredskins]

36 minutes ago, GoSkinsGo said:

 

In a lot of cases jobs are lost and the responsibilities consolidated on an individual without a pay increase. While cost per unit / individual drops revenue may remain consistent. That hurts the economy long term because you're increasing profit for the company without a corresponding earner and therefore removing disposable income from the economy. 

 

We are a consumption economy, we need consumers with the means to spend. We don't need a firm increasing net revenue at the cost of individual earners. 

 

What about people who benefit from that increased net revenue? Doesn't that increase the ability to spend? 

[GoCommiesGo]

Just now, TD_washingtonredskins said:

 

What about people who benefit from that increased net revenue? Doesn't that increase the ability to spend? 

 

It depends greatly on how the revenue would be dispersed. If it was used to say build a new facility or to purchase additional goods and in some way returning the money into the economy then you could argue for it. IF it is used to dostock buy backs or dividends to share holders then no, the net increase wouldn't benefit the economy. 

 

A lot of the issues IMO is that as companies continually to streamline and increase efficiency it is at the cost to lower / middle class. In a prior role I was the CFO of a small business, we had gross revenue of 2-2.5 million. I did everything in my power to increase net revenue. I'm not in that role anymore and I can look back at the things I implemented, and  I can say that while good for the business it was not necessarily the best for our employees. 

 

For example, during the great recession I did some analysis and found that based on our shipping / receiving volume and instore traffic I could remove an employee from the sales floor during certain days. If I did this I was able to eliminate the shipping position and rotate existing staff into the role. When the economy came back we did not rehire that job. 

[Barry.Randolphe]

I saw this on Facebook today from a friend's mouthbreathing Trumper father....they're all falling into line. The cult is real

 

Quote

 

The god is dead.

Big-G ‘God’ is infallible. “To err is human…” Like many of my friends, fellow Marines, and serving and veteran service members, I had raised General James “CHAOS” Mattis up as a god to be set on a pedestal and worshipped. His words were as from a burning bush on not just military matters, but the relationship of the military to civilians in the crossfire and to civilians in leadership and the broader population that raised the US military services. We held that he operated above the partisanship, politics, and prejudices that afflict mere mortals. This week he has shown that he is just as human as the rest of us.
“A small number” – He writes off the rioting and domestic terrorism that has wreaked havoc in many cities across the country as the actions of “a small number of lawbreakers” and implies that no response to them is warranted. As someone who was part of “A Few” Good Men for over 40 years, he knows that a small number of determined people can have an outsized influence, and no one ignored “a small number” of Marines when they were operating in any environment. To dismiss lawbreakers as he does is misguided.

To borrow a metaphor, General Mattis sees President Trump standing over the dead body of American unity and accuses him of being the murderer. In fact, the president is merely the coroner. He saw the body as it was and declared it dead.
The divider(s) – The progressive left and their gospel of intersectionality has been working to both define all people in the US as some sort of hyphenated-Americans, and then put the part before the hyphen in ALL CAPS and underlined while trying to erase the ‘American’ after the hyphen. They tell us that we are not all the beneficiaries of living under the greatest experiment in self-government in the history of the world, but are a collection of separate, distinct, inter-nicene opponents fighting for supremacy over each other.

The wedge – One of President Trump’s notable calling out of a “them” within the US is (rightly) in reference to “The Media.” As someone who used to watch “The Today Show,” “CBS This Morning,” and the NBC Nightly News, and listen to NPR in the car, I witnessed first-hand the loss of any and all veneer of impartiality in the media. It is clear in the adjectives and verbs that they choose, and in the monikers that they regularly attach to any who hold views at odds with their position.
Could President Trump have a thicker skin and not respond to the biased coverage? Sure. But he is all-too-human as well and I don’t know of any president that could have weathered the storm thrust upon him.

He is not the one who stripped the emperor if his clothes, he is simply the one holding up the mirror.
“Inappropriate and counterproductive” – General Mattis rightly argued earlier that for a former general or cabinet secretary to criticize a sitting president would be inappropriate and counterproductive. He said it would interfere with the ability of those still in government to do their jobs and defend the country. As coronavirus threatens our health, lockdowns threaten our rights, rioting threatens our safety and security, and all of them threaten the economic engine that allows American citizens to support themselves and the government through taxes, those still in government have their hands full trying to defend the citizens of the United States. It defies logic that General Mattis would choose this time to ignore his own advice and make everyone’s job harder. It’s true that the period for which he owes his silence is not eternal. But the president you served is still sitting. How does this help him help your fellow citizens?

Like an ancient Greek going to the Acropolis or a Roman going to the Pantheon, and many military-minded people today, I used to worship at the base of the pedestal topped by the marble god of Mattis. This week he has become flesh and stepped down to walk among the rest of us humans. That’s not to say that he shouldn’t be respected for his decades of service to his country, his skill and bravery in leading Marines in battle, and his contribution of making the military a more cerebral organization. But it is to say that Mr. Jim Mattis is merely human and is slave to all the petty foibles that inflict all of us. I don’t know that I would have had the perspective and fortitude to destroy this false god on my own, so it is good that he chose to destroy himself.

 

 

Edited June 5, 2020 by Barry.Randolphe

[Kosher Ham]

You might need new friends or the easier option is to not be online friends with the father. 

[TradeTheBeal!]

I ain’t reading all that jibber-jabber.

[Barry.Randolphe]

7 minutes ago, Kosher Ham said:

You might need new friends or the easier option is to not be online friends with the father. 

 

I haven't blocked him because I like to see the latest crazy talking points from the Fox News watching contingent.

[Kosher Ham]

So clearly you enjoy it. 

Comes off as someone that hates Howard stern,yet still listening every day.

[Renegade7]

12 minutes ago, Barry.Randolphe said:

 

I haven't blocked him because I like to see the latest crazy talking points from the Fox News watching contingent.

 

That's not what Facebook is for.

[PokerPacker]

5 hours ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

 

What about people who benefit from that increased net revenue? Doesn't that increase the ability to spend? 

A billionaire spends a much lower percentage of their income than a worker.

[Larry]

9 hours ago, GoSkinsGo said:

I think a lot of employers are going to leverage this situation to not rehire higher paid employees and backfill the position with cheaper labor. 

 

After the '08 crash, a whole lot of employers leveraged the crash to force employees to take pay cuts.  

 

Even when the economy "came back", a whole lot of employer's bargaining position was "You want to come back, you'll take 20% less than you were making."  

 

I don't see any reason not to expect them to do the same thing again.  We've been tilting the labor-capital negotiating table in favor of capitol for decades.  They're going to use that power.  

 

[TD_washingtonredskins]

11 hours ago, PokerPacker said:

A billionaire spends a much lower percentage of their income than a worker.

 

But not only a CEO benefits...shareholders do too. Those are regular people like you and me (assuming you're not a billionaire). 

[skinsmarydu]

One of our cooks has been going to a local bar. I'm thinking of backing out of work. 

[TD_washingtonredskins]

47 minutes ago, skinsmarydu said:

One of our cooks has been going to a local bar. I'm thinking of backing out of work. 

 

That seems drastic. If a fellow employee has been going to bars or restaurants per the guidelines, it's probably perfectly OK for you to continue working with him or her. 

[LD0506]

[visionary]

 

[skinsmarydu]

7 hours ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

 

That seems drastic. If a fellow employee has been going to bars or restaurants per the guidelines, it's probably perfectly OK for you to continue working with him or her. 

I had a little chat with him today, and pleaded with him to wear a mask, but he's not nearly as worried as someone my age. So I tried the backwards approach, "what would happen to your wife & newborn son if you got sick?" Not sure if it landed, but I tried. 

[Warhead36]

The second wave is going to be brutal. Heck there might even be a THIRD wave at this rate when we get to fall/winter and the regular flu mixes in with this.