There should be a national dialogue in getting back to work

[OldTimeAFLGuy]

....differing schools of thought....Treasury Secretary Mnuchin vs Kudlow..............Mnuchin said if your employer calls you back to work from unemployment as states re-open and you refuse, you're disqualified from the $600 stipend....Kudlow wants to consider a "back to work bonus" for returning......Mnuchin>Kudlow IMO......WSJ said 50% of people on unemployment are earning MORE staying home and we have to now pay them a bonus?....sorry Larry..............

[Taro T]

59 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

You do realize that every single sporting event you have ever attended has occurred in a world that has already lived through dozens of pandemics....right?  The current 'crisis' will not be the end of the world as you've known it, no more than every other over-hyped crisis you've watched and listened to since the advent of Facebook and Twitter.

 

You do realize that the Pegulas were already having planning studies conducted to determine how to replace Rich Stadium & upgrade/ renovate the MMArena that included significantly reducing the seating capacity of both venues to include very spacious premium seating down low between the BL's for hockey & between the 30's for football, right?

 

The owners of all the major league teams have been looking at ways of ramping up the prices they can charge for high amenity seating before anyone ever thought about doing whatever they did to bats over there.  Would not be surprised at all to see our teams' owners to tag onto this current call for distancing in public spaces & overstep the degree of "distancing" & exclusivity that gets built into the renovations/ replacements.

 

Obviously, this crisis isn't going to end life (or lifestyles) as we know it (or them).  But it seems unlikely that opportunists aren't going to push for modifications in the way things are done to put even more money in their pockets.  Making it a far more exclusive, nicer, & pricier thing to attend a sporting event or concert in person while taking advantage of 4K HDTVs to make it essentially seem like you're at the show (minus the faint smell of ganja wafting through the air) while paying the equivalent of the price of a cheap seat seems a reasonable expectation from here.  Ymmv.

[3rdnlng]

21 minutes ago, OldTimeAFLGuy said:

....differing schools of thought....Treasury Secretary Mnuchin vs Kudlow..............Mnuchin said if your employer calls you back to work from unemployment as states re-open and you refuse, you're disqualified from the $600 stipend....Kudlow wants to consider a "back to work bonus" for returning......Mnuchin>Kudlow IMO......WSJ said 50% of people on unemployment are earning MORE staying home and we have to now pay them a bonus?....sorry Larry..............

I think the difference is if a person is called back vs. if a person has to go out and find a new job because they are not going to be called back. Kudlow wants to encourage them to find a new job while Mnuchin has a right approach for the people who refuse to get called back. Apples and cucumbers. 

[SoCal Deek]

2 hours ago, Taro T said:

 

Obviously, this crisis isn't going to end life (or lifestyles) as we know it (or them).  But it seems unlikely that opportunists aren't going to push for modifications in the way things are done to put even more money in their pockets.  Making it a far more exclusive, nicer, & pricier thing to attend a sporting event or concert in person while taking advantage of 4K HDTVs to make it essentially seem like you're at the show (minus the faint smell of ganja wafting through the air) while paying the equivalent of the price of a cheap seat seems a reasonable expectation from here.  Ymmv.

Stadium projects take years and years to design and construct. I highly doubt that the Spring 2020 Corona Virus will have much of an impact on future stadium designs.  Other factors might, but not the Covid issue. I guess we'll both wait and see. (Think about the impact on Las Vegas and Los Angeles, both of which haven't even opened their new facilities yet.....YIKES)

[Magox]

Mortgage applications up 9%

 

FROM LAST YEAR!

 

Quote

 

Mortgage applications to purchase a home rose 9% last week from the previous week and from a year earlier, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index. It was the sixth straight week of gains and a 54% recovery since early April.

 

“The home purchase market continued its path to recovery as various states reopen, leading to more buyers resuming their home search,” said Joel Kan, an MBA economist. “Additionally, the purchase loan amount has increased steadily in recent weeks and is now at its highest level since mid-March.” 

The gain mirrors an unexpectedly strong sales pace just reported for newly built homes in April. They were forecast to fall 22% but instead rose nearly 1% for the month, according to the U.S. Census. Buyers are rushing into the new home market, as the supply of existing homes keeps falling to new record lows. Some analysts also believe there is now a flight from urban downtowns, where people have been sheltered in small apartments, to suburban markets, where they can find more space, especially backyards and home offices. 

 

 

Interesting little tidbit there at the end.

 

I would like to see some proof of that.  I don't doubt it, I do think that the virus will change some consumer and migratory behavior.  

 

[SoCal Deek]

1 minute ago, Magox said:

Mortgage applications up 9%

 

FROM LAST YEAR!

 

 

Interesting little tidbit there at the end.

 

I would like to see some proof of that.  I don't doubt it, I do think that the virus will change some consumer and migratory behavior.  

 

We’ll see. Americans have been dealing with winter snows and summer humidity and bugs for over two centuries, and yet there are millions who still choose to live in the northeast. 

[Warren Zevon]

4 minutes ago, Magox said:

Mortgage applications up 9%

 

FROM LAST YEAR!

 

 

Interesting little tidbit there at the end.

 

I would like to see some proof of that.  I don't doubt it, I do think that the virus will change some consumer and migratory behavior.  

 

 

More people working from home permanently will give more people the opportunity to live wherever they want.

[Magox]

26 minutes ago, Warren Zevon said:

 

More people working from home permanently will give more people the opportunity to live wherever they want.

 

Possibly.  Makes sense.   I do think that there will be more companies employing work-at-home models.

 

I know our company, we made the decision to have more of our employees work from home.  We had the luxury to first have seasonal 1099  contracted  workers sort of show their mettle first and it gave us the chance to observe their habits, ethics and results to give us an opportunity to pick the cream of the crop.   That's helped us greatly.

 

The thing about work-at-home jobs is that there are trade offs.  If you can only go by a resume and some referrals and you have a newly hired employee there are logistical challenges to getting the employee up-to-speed and you truly don't know their work habits in a somewhat unsupervised environment.  Clearly working in an office you have more control of these issues.

 

But the on the positive side of the ledger, it's less costly, you can attract better nationwide talent as opposed to being stuck with what is available in the region where the company resides and now with these sort of virus disaster issues you are less affected.

 

We actually opened up a call center this past year and now they are all working from home for now.  We are about to open up another office in Savannah GA. and Boca. Florida,  but most of our team works from home.   There are advantages and disadvantages to both models.

[Chef Jim]

42 minutes ago, Magox said:

Mortgage applications up 9%

 

FROM LAST YEAR!

 

 

Interesting little tidbit there at the end.

 

I would like to see some proof of that.  I don't doubt it, I do think that the virus will change some consumer and migratory behavior.  

 

I was thinking this yesterday. People will not be as willing to live on top of one another.  Progressives have been touting the urban plan when people packed closely is often not good. I wonder if they’re still going to push this?  I can’t tell you how often the wife and I got sick living in SF. She nearly died from some terrible respiratory ailment that was never diagnosed. 

[GG]

41 minutes ago, Magox said:

Mortgage applications up 9%

 

FROM LAST YEAR!

 

 

Interesting little tidbit there at the end.

 

I would like to see some proof of that.  I don't doubt it, I do think that the virus will change some consumer and migratory behavior.  

 

 

You'll see it when the realtors provide data.  My agent in Hudson Valley says this is the busiest he's been in years will all the inbound calls from NYC and they still can't do live showings w/ clients.   Other data shows that 40% of Manhattanites fled in April.

[dhg]

Not sure if this has been posted. Wonder how many that voted are having fun collecting their unemployment checks +$600 weekly, doing nothing, and have ZERO motivation getting back to work because they are making more on unemployment. 

[IDBillzFan]

8 minutes ago, GG said:

 

You'll see it when the realtors provide data.  My agent in Hudson Valley says this is the busiest he's been in years will all the inbound calls from NYC and they still can't do live showings w/ clients.   Other data shows that 40% of Manhattanites fled in April.

 

I'm in the process of a re-fi to a 15 year to take advantage of these ridiculous rates, and my money guy said the re-fi market is crazy busy for him, but he's got us in a holding pattern as rates tend do go down as we get closer to an election. I'm waiting to see what rates we're looking at this morning, as they have been all over the map and VERY difficult to lock down for any length of time. This is the first time I've ever had all my paperwork in and still haven't locked on a rate yet.

 

And yeah, I know, I'm not a money guy and I'm sure some money guys will tell me my money guy is wrong, but I don't give a schitt. There is little squabbling from me if I have to choose 2.8% or hold out for 2.5% mortgage. 

[shoshin]

18 hours ago, Magox said:

 

It's plausible.  I'm not going to lie, the recovery is starting offer more rapidly than I anticipated.  With that said, my biggest worries wasn't so much the takeoff of the recovery, that I thought would happen.  It's the follow through.  There will be many restaurants and small businesses that will permanently shudder as a result of the lock downs.  They will eventually be replaced but that doesn't happen overnight and in order for the economy to be made whole, that means all those businesses that shut down will have to be revived again in some shape or form.   

 

I know this is an unpopular position on this board, but with interest rates near 0%, it makes a lot of sense for the government to borrow to stimulate the economy.  I'm not a full Keynesian sort of guy, I disagreed with much of it under Obama because I thought the problems the economy had were structural which required structural policy prescriptions.

 

This is not structural, this is a matter of reopening and giving stimulus in targeted manners to get the economy more quickly back to whole.

 

The stock market will recover faster than unemployment will. The odds of us getting to single digit unemployment before next summer are low. Companies are going to rush back in at first but they will be slow to re-establish full employment and small businesses especially restaurants that still can't open at capacity will really struggle to move ahead. 

 

Saw a stat that since 1948, we have had 11 months total of double digit unemployment. We may get to that consecutively in 2020-21, although I sure hope not. 

 

47 minutes ago, Magox said:

 

Possibly.  Makes sense.   I do think that there will be more companies employing work-at-home models.

 

I know our company, we made the decision to have more of our employees work from home.  We had the luxury to first have seasonal 1099  contracted  workers sort of show their mettle first and it gave us the chance to observe their habits, ethics and results to give us an opportunity to pick the cream of the crop.   That's helped us greatly.

 

The thing about work-at-home jobs is that there are trade offs.  If you can only go by a resume and some referrals and you have a newly hired employee there are logistical challenges to getting the employee up-to-speed and you truly don't know their work habits in a somewhat unsupervised environment.  Clearly working in an office you have more control of these issues.

 

But the on the positive side of the ledger, it's less costly, you can attract better nationwide talent as opposed to being stuck with what is available in the region where the company resides and now with these sort of virus disaster issues you are less affected.

 

We actually opened up a call center this past year and now they are all working from home for now.  We are about to open up another office in Savannah GA. and Boca. Florida,  but most of our team works from home.   There are advantages and disadvantages to both models.

 

We've had work from wherever since I started. I would say the biggest tradeoff is quality of team-building and idea-exchange. You can do it virtually and we do but it's never as fulfilling. 

 

We still are doing it because that's what people want but I'm convinced we're less innovative and less of a tight team because of it. Still...people love it and no one wants to change. So. 

Edited May 27, 2020 by shoshin

[Magox]

2 minutes ago, shoshin said:

 

The stock market will recover faster than unemployment will. The odds of us getting to single digit unemployment before next summer are low. Companies are going to rush back in at first but they will be slow to re-establish full employment and small businesses especially restaurants that still can't open at capacity will really struggle to move ahead. 

 

Saw a stat that since 1948, we have had 11 months total of double digit unemployment. We may get to that consecutively in 2020-21, although I sure hope not. 

 

 

 

It depends on how deep the hole gets and the confidence of the American public to get back to a more normalized society.  

 

If you look at airline travel, hotel booking and google metrics, people are getting out.  A lot more so than anticipated at this juncture.  If there are no other media driven scares that play into the pscyhe of consumers from increased infections etc.  Then I happen to think that the recovery has a lot of low hanging fruit to recoup.

 

I could see the economy easily getting to 8% unemployment by next summer, provided the aforementioned happens.  And if we do get a vaccine that is available for over 100 million people in the US to use by the end of the year, then I fully expect that to happen.

 

The problem from my view isn't getting to 8%, it's what will happen afterwards.  This is where I think it gets a lot more difficult.  This is the recouping of those small businesses that permanently shuddered.  Those don't come back overnight.  Hopefully some additional lending legislation with some of it being forgivable can provide those that lost their businesses a second bite at the apple to attempt to make themselves whole again.

[IDBillzFan]

2 minutes ago, Magox said:

The problem from my view isn't getting to 8%, it's what will happen afterwards.  This is where I think it gets a lot more difficult.  This is the recouping of those small businesses that permanently shuddered.  Those don't come back overnight.  Hopefully some additional lending legislation with some of it being forgivable can provide those that lost their businesses a second bite at the apple to attempt to make themselves whole again.

 

What we don't hear discussed much, but is happening everywhere, is that many companies are using this opportunity to re-calibrate not just the number of employees, but their salaries. When this hit, the first things a lot of firms did was release employees that were borderline employees to begin with. Those jobs aren't coming back.

 

I have no idea how large that number is, but it happened everywhere and very few people discuss it.

[dubs]

Not sure if this was posted, but I’ve barely seen this covered in the news. Which is strange given the potential implications

 

https://reason.com/2020/05/24/the-cdcs-new-best-estimate-implies-a-covid-19-infection-fatality-rate-below-0-3/

 

 

Edited May 27, 2020 by dubs

[B-Man]

Democrats Are Running Out of Arguments

by Conrad Black

 

Original Article

 

 

 

[Boatdrinks]

1 hour ago, dhg said:

Not sure if this has been posted. Wonder how many that voted are having fun collecting their unemployment checks +$600 weekly, doing nothing, and have ZERO motivation getting back to work because they are making more on unemployment. 

Most. The local news outlets are all pushing the results of this poll, as they know polls are used to shape public opinion. One local tv station also mentioned that “ only self identified conservatives” thought that waiting too long to reopen was a bigger problem. As if they don’t matter and are obviously being unreasonable. I’m not shocked at the results of the poll because most of those who are for staying closed down are all too willing to sacrifice their freedoms in exchange for a government check. The story also stated that a large percentage of those who said too early had lost a job. The correlation is pretty strong. They don’t care about their job, working, or if jobs return. The government will bail them out ! 

[B-Man]

 

 

Media botched the virus crisis and made it ‘worse’: Poll.

 

 

 

 

[OldTimeAFLGuy]

4 hours ago, Magox said:

 

Possibly.  Makes sense.   I do think that there will be more companies employing work-at-home models.

 

I know our company, we made the decision to have more of our employees work from home.  We had the luxury to first have seasonal 1099  contracted  workers sort of show their mettle first and it gave us the chance to observe their habits, ethics and results to give us an opportunity to pick the cream of the crop.   That's helped us greatly.

 

The thing about work-at-home jobs is that there are trade offs.  If you can only go by a resume and some referrals and you have a newly hired employee there are logistical challenges to getting the employee up-to-speed and you truly don't know their work habits in a somewhat unsupervised environment.  Clearly working in an office you have more control of these issues.

 

But the on the positive side of the ledger, it's less costly, you can attract better nationwide talent as opposed to being stuck with what is available in the region where the company resides and now with these sort of virus disaster issues you are less affected.

 

We actually opened up a call center this past year and now they are all working from home for now.  We are about to open up another office in Savannah GA. and Boca. Florida,  but most of our team works from home.   There are advantages and disadvantages to both models.

 

...that and the loss of face to face interaction with colleagues are my concerns (44 years in business, so I'm a dinosaur)…...I'm not convinced ( nor am my two c-execs) that I/we get the same employee productivity in a "work from home" environment as I do "in the office (they swear I do)"....that's just me though...…...

Edited May 27, 2020 by OldTimeAFLGuy