EIDL / PPP assistance, COVID impact on biz

[jimboston]

We can keep the name as 'Pointless Semantics' and I will agree with you that casting a vote in any election that does not use PR is basically meaningless.

Even systems with Proportional Representation can be corrupted by money, gerrymandering, a misinformed or under-educated public, and fake news.

Not a cure-all for sure.

[Dukasaur]

Duk (et al)....interesting article. However, the PPP vehicle MUST be used for paying employee salary that would have lost their job without PPP assistance. There must be more to this story, as it says he fired all employees, THEN got a loan to pay them. Either he's hired them back, returned the money or used it for something else, in which case it is a LOAN and must be repaid in 2 years.

This program is indeed "welfare" in that advances used as intended may be forgiven / given grant status. Funds NOT used as intended must be repaid.

I know of several local businesses that applied, fired employees, got the loan but did NOT hire employees back because theres no work, so simply gave the loan funds back.

Weird.

I would also point out that blaming companies for taking advantage of gov't programs is kind of silly. A leader of a company has a fiduciary responsibility to try and make money no? If the gov't designs a plan that doesn't work as designed it's the gov't leaders that should be blamed, not the companies. There seems to be alot of hate against Ruth Chris, and other chains in this regards but if that chain doesn't use these funds to pay employees... then they have to pay the money back. I guess I don't really see the issue with the program, provided they stick with the existing terms of pay employees or pay the money back.

I don't know. I haven't been in the States in a few years and don't have a feel for the mood, just the articles I read.

It's true that the government should be blamed for the unforeseen consequences of programs that don't work. In this case, though, all these programs were put together under significant time pressure, so I'm inclined to be less judgemental than usual. In Canada, we too are finding many flaws in the various relief programs that the government has trotted out in excessive haste, but the parliamentary system is just a little more flexible, and the flaws are just a little easier to fix.

[KoolBak]

Duk....I have tried and tried and can't figure out your statement aboot "mood".

Can you explain that?

It sounds like you're judging the entire country by a feeling you sense when you visit a fraction of 1% of it??

The "mood" I sense varies HUGELY from West Linn, where I live, to outer SE Portland 9 miles away. From happy and safe (murika is great) to fear for your life (murika fucking sucks).

Go to Halfway in hells canyon 300 miles away and it's the old West.

This is less than one percent of OREGON.

Interested to see what you mean.

[jimboston]

Duk....I have tried and tried and can't figure out your statement aboot "mood".

Can you explain that?

It sounds like you're judging the entire country by a feeling you sense when you visit a fraction of 1% of it??

The "mood" I sense varies HUGELY from West Linn, where I live, to outer SE Portland 9 miles away. From happy and safe (murika is great) to fear for your life (murika fucking sucks).

Go to Halfway in hells canyon 300 miles away and it's the old West.

This is less than one percent of OREGON.

Interested to see what you mean.

“Mood” can vary greatly in even shorter distances.

I live well off what we consider main-roads here in Massachusetts. I live in a cup-de-sac development, with nice houses that are well tended and filled with families in the middle or upper-middle income bracket. At the end of my road is a working cranberry bog, about a half mile away there’s a working nursery farm. It’s not ‘rural’ by Western States standards... the cranberry bog is maybe 15-20 acres.... by Massachusetts standards it’s pretty rural. I grew up less than three miles from Harvard, now my closest Dunkin’ Donuts is over 4 miles.

About 2-3 miles away, right off the main road, is a public housing development. This place actually looks ok compared to what you picture in a big city like NYC or Chicago... or even compared to the developments I worked at in Boston. Still, by definition it’s filled with working class families who are below or just above the poverty line. The ‘mood’ and prospects for the people there I’m sure is quite different than what you’d find surveying my direct neighbors.

[KoolBak]

Egg-zachary.....

Always wanted to see a cranberry bog....

[mookiemcgee]

Duk....I have tried and tried and can't figure out your statement aboot "mood".

Can you explain that?

It sounds like you're judging the entire country by a feeling you sense when you visit a fraction of 1% of it??

The "mood" I sense varies HUGELY from West Linn, where I live, to outer SE Portland 9 miles away. From happy and safe (murika is great) to fear for your life (murika fucking sucks).

Go to Halfway in hells canyon 300 miles away and it's the old West.

This is less than one percent of OREGON.

Interested to see what you mean.

I don't want to speak for a dinosaur, but I believe he meant "Mood = Zeitgeist".

[jimboston]

Always wanted to see a cranberry bog....

It’s relative... to me they’re not so impressive.

Small abandoned bogs are a dime a dozen around here. A working one in season is pretty cool.
I’m only about 15 minutes from Ocean Spray headquarters.

Interestingly, or ironically, though Southeast Massachusetts is historically the “center” of the cranberry world... do mainly to land needs Massachusetts can’t supply the bulk of the annual crop and has lost that title to Wisconsin. Your area, the Northwest, is also a big source... with Washington and Oregon being top 5 suppliers. You may live closer to a bog than you realize. (Though I know distances (the size of States) out West are much bigger than back East... so it depends I guess a lot on where you live in your State. Massachusetts is tiny relative... you can drive from Boston to the Western border with New York State in under 4 hours.)

[jimboston]

Duk....I have tried and tried and can't figure out your statement aboot "mood".

Can you explain that?

It sounds like you're judging the entire country by a feeling you sense when you visit a fraction of 1% of it??

The "mood" I sense varies HUGELY from West Linn, where I live, to outer SE Portland 9 miles away. From happy and safe (murika is great) to fear for your life (murika fucking sucks).

Go to Halfway in hells canyon 300 miles away and it's the old West.

This is less than one percent of OREGON.

Interested to see what you mean.

I don't want to speak for a dinosaur, but I believe he meant "Mood = Zeitgeist".

Yes... but is there a “universal” Zeitgeist that applies to the entire USA?

[mookiemcgee]

Duk....I have tried and tried and can't figure out your statement aboot "mood".

Can you explain that?

It sounds like you're judging the entire country by a feeling you sense when you visit a fraction of 1% of it??

The "mood" I sense varies HUGELY from West Linn, where I live, to outer SE Portland 9 miles away. From happy and safe (murika is great) to fear for your life (murika fucking sucks).

Go to Halfway in hells canyon 300 miles away and it's the old West.

This is less than one percent of OREGON.

Interested to see what you mean.

I don't want to speak for a dinosaur, but I believe he meant "Mood = Zeitgeist".

Yes... but is there a “universal” Zeitgeist that applies to the entire USA?

Yes, there is even a Zeitgeist that would apply to the whole world. There is also a Zeitgeist that might apply to just your city or neighborhood. Words are cool.

[KoolBak]

Interesting. Looked it up....mostly on the southern coast in Oregon. I'm a native and I've been down there once over 6 hours away - our northern coast is less than 2 (and prettier).

Damnit....

Always wanted to see a cranberry bog....

It’s relative... to me they’re not so impressive.

Small abandoned bogs are a dime a dozen around here. A working one in season is pretty cool.
I’m only about 15 minutes from Ocean Spray headquarters.

Interestingly, or ironically, though Southeast Massachusetts is historically the “center” of the cranberry world... do mainly to land needs Massachusetts can’t supply the bulk of the annual crop and has lost that title to Wisconsin. Your area, the Northwest, is also a big source... with Washington and Oregon being top 5 suppliers. You may live closer to a bog than you realize. (Though I know distances (the size of States) out West are much bigger than back East... so it depends I guess a lot on where you live in your State. Massachusetts is tiny relative... you can drive from Boston to the Western border with New York State in under 4 hours.)

[Dukasaur]

Duk....I have tried and tried and can't figure out your statement aboot "mood".

Can you explain that?

It sounds like you're judging the entire country by a feeling you sense when you visit a fraction of 1% of it??

The "mood" I sense varies HUGELY from West Linn, where I live, to outer SE Portland 9 miles away. From happy and safe (murika is great) to fear for your life (murika fucking sucks).

Go to Halfway in hells canyon 300 miles away and it's the old West.

This is less than one percent of OREGON.

Interested to see what you mean.

When public opinion pollsters survey the public, they also talk to less than 1% of the public.

A small sample can be a good sample, if it is A -- fairly broad and B -- fairly random. When you drive around a country, stopping in diverse places and meeting people with different occupations, you can get a good "feel" for it. I'm not claiming that it's as good as an academic study with an intentionally-randomized sample, but it's better than being dependent on a much less random sample like "people who write articles."

I don't want to speak for a dinosaur, but I believe he meant "Mood = Zeitgeist".

Yes... but is there a “universal” Zeitgeist that applies to the entire USA?

I think so. Last time I spent any time in the U.S., which would have been May 2013, just before I quit long-haul, I think the dominant zeitgeist was confidence.

That was one of the things that struck me. People I met in the States weren't worrying. I think I delivered in 16 different states during my long-haul phase (late 2011 to May 2013) and met a lot of different people in a lot of different industries. Obviously they were of different political stripes, different races, different income levels, etc., but the one thing I think that unified them all was a confidence that the future would take care of itself. I don't think during that whole time I heard anyone worrying about what would happen tomorrow. This was quite at odds with what opinion polls of the time were telling me.

[2dimes]

The confidence you speak of in 2011 is interesting, the housing crises of 2008, that did not hit us directly, was still affecting the economic mood in construction in my city until probably closer to 2014 or 2015.

Employment here was interesting prior to 2008 though. There were people making $20/hour or more working in fast food places for a couple of years here.