How many people are actually suffering financially from the pandemic?

So every dime that comes in, goes out on budgeted items?
What about the sinking fund?
What happens if their expenses exceed budget, how are they paid for?

So for a non-profit to 'lose money' they had to have a method of actually paying for those losses, eh? Which means, by any other name, they had a 'profit' somewhere along the line.

 

What's your point? Are you suggesting that the university leadership is just pretending they are in a huge budget crunch, to get more money from the Feds?

 

welcome to the reality of the economy. When tax "revenue" drops, then state schools will have a decrease in taxpayer funds. Tough choices will need to be made like losing the philosophy dept or cutting the liberal arts program. You cannot expect (but perhaps you do having been sheltered in academia) for states to try and squeeze dollars from taxpayers when they have been hit hard just so your school feels no pain.

 

I have no idea what they might be 'pretending'. The idea that each and every year, they spend exactly what they take in is highly unlikely. Most nonprofits have a sinking fund, or a cushion when there are shortfalls.

Just because they haven't met their projected budget, doesn't mean they are hurting for cash.

 

I am not denying that hard choices have to be made, and they are. I already mentioned the hiring freeze, so essential positions do not get refilled, leaving the remaining staff to do more with less.

I am just wondering about the GOP attitude as to why businesses that are hurting because of covid deserve federal bailout money, but universities do not? I have no problem with the former, but it seems Republicans have problems with the latter.

 

Essential is your own definition. Obviously the economy and market deem them otherwise.

Please let me be sure that I understand you correctly. Also, forgive me because I cannot speak for Republicans as I have contempt for many GOP elected officials. Your question is should the taxpayers (there is no such thing as federal money, it gets taken from the productive for redistribution by the unproductive {govt employees} ) foot the bill for failed businesses?

My answer is NO, a resounding NO.

It's the same answer when Dodd/Frank was passed and it shuttered many profitable, small businesses. Or, when the ACA was passed and that too shuttered many profitable small businesses. I also did not support the taxpayer bailout of the UAW

votes have consequences and it's high time that pain gets felt by anyone who believes that a big central govt is a good thing. It's also time for those who sit on the sidelines to also feel pain and allow big govt politicians to win elections.

I had to cut staff after both Dodd/Frank and later, the ACA. My business was profitable but Democrat votes had consequences.

Allowing politicians to tank the economy with draconian measures that did not eradicate the virus, because they can't eradicate it, has consequences. Academia must also feel those consequences. It's high time for US citizens to understand that if you push govt further left, it can never improve the stock of the unfortunate; it can only lower the stock of everyone.

I'm sorry to speak to you about reality but it might make you think, even for a millisecond, before you cast another vote for any Democrat or big govt loving politician. Life has no guarantees and not everyone will win a trophy.

 

Fine, then let small business owners feel the pain too, if they didn't put away a buck for the rainy day. I just don't get it that conservatives feel that bailing out businesses is helping people, but bailing out universities is not. Newsflash: people actually work at those universities, If they lose their jobs, it is no different for the overall economy than someone losing their job at a small business.

I had no problems when Trump bailed out farmers because of the flooding, or because of his tariffs. What I resent is that conservatives accept the government goodness when it helps them, but they cry when public employees at universities get bailed out, because they hate universities.

 

I suggest that you do some research on conservatism. You won't find a true conservative who supports bail outs. Conservatives also do not support an over-bearing federal government. Life brings risk with it. Break it down to as simple as a toddler who continuously wants to touch the hot stove. You can build a fence, demand that manufacturers build in safety devices, or let that toddler learn what hot and boo boo means.

By bailing out any business, large or small and even taxpayer funded ones (public academia), we shelter folks from the reality that votes have consequences.

There is a reason that you and others work in academia or taxpayer funded jobs and for many, it's the history of job security. It's time for taxpayer funded employees to understand that policies that harm private business, will hurt their own pocketbook, because eventually, you do run out of other peoples money.

When the last administration cut taxes, the fed and states saw historic levels of "tax revenue" yet what did they do???????? They spent it like drunken sailors. With this new admin and Democrat utopia, we will see tax increases and "Tax revenue" will drop because tax hikes hurt the avg person. We will see energy prices rise and thus driving up the cost of everything. We'll hear the battle cry for $15 per hour min wage but with every other price rising, it's a wash, or worse.

Big govt folks create the problems and then play around acting like they have the solution and shroud it in cute messaging like "compassion and fair-share"

Who in the Hell put in charge of what is fair a bunch of people who have never had to meet a payroll, never started a business and have been on the taxpayer dole for 1/2 a century (Biden)? It's unbelievable that people think the most inept (govt ) can solve problems when they are the ones who cause them.

Covid 19 isn't going away and will remain with us in one mutation or another for a long time, much like other corona viruses. The fact that big-govt politicians and bureaucrats are using this as a vehicle to grow their control of the electorate is despicable, and that DC insiders made sure that it continued.

Please pay attention to how I label the folks as "big-govt politicians"

Democrats had 2 years of Democrat utopia when Obama first took office; did you all get the liberal utopia that you hoped to get? Nope because corporate donors would have shut down the money train and jobs for friends/family

GOP had 2 years of Republican utopia when Trump took office; did conservatives get the ACA completely repealed? Nope and again, corporate donors.

 

Regarding the question posed by OP, the other side of the coin is how many people (including corporations) are profiting from Covid?

Is that something that can be talked about?

COVID Bailout Tracker | Accountable.US

This site details the plunder of the US Treasury in the name of a flu virus that was engineered with taxpayer dollars.

Some say the rich have become more rich, and the poor have become more poor.

 

Interesting link. Thanks for sharing it.

 

People have mentioned the cruise industry, airlines, hospitality (restaurants, hotels), universities. All true, I suppose. There are some categories people rarely think about: artists in the performing arts. Classical music orchestras, jazz bands, ballet, opera, stage theaters, concerts, gigs in bars, etc.; all these musicians, dancers, singers, actors, etc., suddenly found themselves without their breadwinning performances. Theaters, concert halls, opera houses, they are all closed.

Another one: those who depend on commercial real state and are landlords of office spaces downtown, etc. They may never recover. I mean, the pandemic will eventually end and people will travel again, go on cruises, restaurants and concert halls will reopen, orchestras will play.. but many companies have realized that telework is more budget-friendly than renting office space.

Also, business travel to attend meetings may become a thing of the past... with people now meeting via Zoom, Google Meet, and other professional proprietary platforms, and corporations realizing that these function just as well as meetings with in-person presence, but are much cheaper. So, airlines that relied on corporate clients for business class tickets, hotels with convention centers, etc., may never see the same kind of business activity, post-pandemic.

I may be misinformed but I don't think that the retail sector is as affected as people say. Basically all 50 states have reopened all sorts of stores for months, since May. What state rules did, was the implementation of capacity restrictions. So, say, a store in the past had one of those signs "according to the Fire Marshall, occupancy by more than 200 people is unlawful." OK, so the state said, "you can open at 25% capacity." All right, so, this means that 50 customers can be there in-store at any given time. However, even before the pandemic, there were never 50 customers there, simultaneously. So effectively that particular store suffered no restriction whatsoever.

Now, retail businesses may be hurting because of overall economic crisis and lack of consumer confidence. I can see that. But that's not due to any governmental decree. I think the same applies to restaurants and hotels, cruise ships, etc. Even if there were no restrictions whatsoever, people would still not go out and enjoy these things as readily as they did before the pandemic, not only due to the economic crisis and drop in disposable income and consumer confidence, but also due to people just being afraid of catching this disease in closed indoor spaces.

I've said here, once my wife and I got our two doses of the vaccine, and after two weeks of the second dose, I invited her to dine out. She declined, still afraid. But while she was considering it, I looked around on OpenTable, and there were literally hundreds and hundreds of available spots in my area, when normally it would have been hard to score a table on short notice (we live in a touristy, foody location). So, restaurants are authorized to open in my state and to serve patrons indoors with some capacity restrictions and social distancing of tables... but their diminished capacity is not even getting fully booked! So if there were no restrictions whatsoever, they wouldn't be filling those tables, either. Maybe the opposite. People would be even MORE afraid of dining out there if there were no restrictions, table distancing, etc.

I think that there is a persistent misunderstanding of this issue. The main factor that is hurting these businesses is not some sort of governmental restriction. It's the virus itself.

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To respond regarding my own situation and my wife's: we are not hurting at all. We actually made significantly more money in 2020 than in 2019. This is because our hospital allocated some bonus pay for the sake of the hazardous working environment, to those who have accepted to work in Covid-19 units, which we both did. The hospital administration was afraid that people would take vacations, sick leave, premature retirement, etc., scared of working on these units, which would then be under-staffed, so they got this bonus going. This incentive actually has ended as of January 31st simply because our hospital is running out of money... with the cancellations of elective surgeries, etc. But while it lasted, we ended up making a lot more than our usual. Now, the bonus is over, but we went back to the same level of compensation we had before the pandemic, so we can't say we're hurting either, especially because we are also spending a lot less. We loved to travel, stay in hotels, go to restaurants, etc., and we aren't doing any of these things so the disposable income at the end of the month is higher even without the bonus.

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We never qualified for these stimulus checks anyway due to making more than the threshold, but I think that distributing money like this isn't the answer. I'd have preferred to see payroll protection beefed up, and stimulus only granted to people who are indeed hurting. Sure, one says "but if you give the stimulus money to all people who qualify under the threshold, you stimulate the whole economy as they'll spend the money." Not necessarily. People who are not hurting will likely not splurge just because of some $1,400 check. They will simply put the money away in some savings account as they don't need it, and are not spending as much anyway (like in my example of my wife and I not going to restaurants, hotels, etc.).

 

Are the stimulus checks a perverted form of quid pro quo?

Are the government officials effectively saying, "here we're going to give you some money for having deceived you and plundered the treasury"?

 

Profiting from or profiting during, I sure hope most are profiting during don't you?

 

If you have sent students home and they are not being taught in person and not living on campus why would you be hiring at all? Colleges are still charging tuitions. And why should I love union public school teachers who refuse to go back to school in spite of the science saying they can and still demand to be paid.

 

It seems a semantical distinction.

The Covid Bailout Tracker I linked to in #34 shows it it widespread. Even churches are feeding at the trough.

Plandemic is the word.

 

It's a very important point. YES money has been widespread, that was the goal. And the Democrats want to spread more of it.

Why are you so keen to make sure companies do not make profits during this? Have you made sure you are investing you retirement savings in companies which are not making profits, can you give me a few examples?

 

Thanks for the good comments.

I am not keen that companies do not make profits. I'm a capitalist all the way, but have understood for years that capitalism run amok is a bad thing for society. To be clear, I am not invested in the stock market. Used to be, but it's been a long time.

I'm all for profits, but the elephant in the room is that what companies received from the government by way of CARES are not profits. They are tax payer dollars redistributed from the Treasury to private companies.

One could made a credible argument that such redistribution is close to being a sign of fascism.

Churches and airlines receiving tax payer dollars? How is that capitalism? How is that profits from good corporate management?

Back to the elephant in the room, David Martin and Mikki Willis and others have a solid case, full of facts and evidence, that this CARES Act is the spawn of deception. What we've been through, are still going through in some places, was a planned event, planned years in advance.

Watch Plandemic II, Indoctornation, if you are curious. This isn't capitalism to plunder the Treasury by way of cruel deception.

 

Reality has a liberal bias

 

Ha, you'll believe anything the Deep State tells you to.

Nobody has died or even been sick. They're all ACTORS you know. They wheez all day on their ventilator and then join the "hardworking" doctors and nurses in the hospital basement for the orgy featuring roast toddler as the main course

Only once the Divine Trump (pbuh) is restored to his Rightful Office and the Storm cleanses us of Nancy Pelosi and Tom Hicks will Righteous America return to its preeminent place ruling the world

 

We are seeing a HUGE amount of FRAUD with the money that was shoveled out and THAT is what we should be concerned with. Both companies and private citizens the latter appearing to be in billions in just one state. The money companies got went to PPP into paychecks missed. An Churches have employees too. And it's a sign of socialism more than fascism.

Show me a better economic system that free market capitalism. Show me where business and industry not making profits has worked better. That's rhetorical as you probably recognize because no one could show that. Even if you are not in the stock market but in bonds or real estate profits are key. Collectibles, same thing. Commodities, same thing. Even municipal tax free bonds the interest paid is your profit. "Profit" has somehow become a dirty word, that people or companies actually MAKING A PROFIT is horrible and mean and taking advantage of others and driving the cost up and quality down and all sorts of other nonsense. Then there is the "the employees desire a share of the profits" folly.

And airlines are a VITAL infrastructure and operate under strict federal regulations not just on the equipment and employees but their routes. It is in our national security interest to make sure we have a viable air transportation both persons and freight. It should be handled like TARP, of which I was not a big fan but it did work and the US Treasury actually made money from it.

We are finding the economic impact was not as severe as was expected. A report I saw today said the majority of states did not suffer revenue falls and are doing fine. Businesses are coming back. Texas just announced that they are now FULLY open, all businesses.

So back to the point how many people are actually suffering financially to the extent it requires some type of taxpayer assistance. How many are just taking advantage of the opportunity to NOT have to go back to work. Why are we about the shell out all this money when we have barely touched the almost $1B that was passed just in December.

 

I'm all for free market capitalism, but what we have today in this country does not meet the definition of that term.

I recognize and agree that in some cases TARP type measures are necessary for social stability, but the government bailing out corporations for poor management practices does not comport with free market capitalism.

Free market capitalism requires that the strong survive and the weak perish, or at least rearrange through bankruptcy.

The larger point is that in the specific case of the covid response, it was not the virus that caused the harm, it was the government response to the perception of the virus that caused the harm. Numerous shops in my area are gone now. Not because of poor business practices, but because of heavy-handed government demands.