This is grim news.
The destruction of the economy will kill many more people than the virus will.
8 thoughts on “The Economic Catastrophe”
Comments are closed.
This is grim news.
The destruction of the economy will kill many more people than the virus will.
Comments are closed.
I can imagine–without too much effort–“liberals” and other State-fellators in the Democratic party high-fiveing each other and saying, “Mission accomplished!”
Unemployment benefit levels that exceed earnings for many American workers under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act;
Actually it’s closer to half of all workers. Fortunately that should end in July. By August 1st there will be a lot of people who will need to go back to work or face serious pain. Of course Pelosi&Co will want to push that date out as long as possible. Take a gander at this gem in their next aid package.
I think we should debate the value of the H-1B visa program. Suspending that program and sending those folks back to their countries of origin would be very difficult, some of them have been here more than 10 years (how is that?), and I recognize that replacing all of those workers with Americans likely won’t make that big a dent in the unemployment situation we are facing, but at the same time the program does need to be debated in its current form. Similarly, a serious effort to weed out and send home 12-20 million illegal immigrants won’t resolve the unemployment situation either, but that state of affairs also needs to be debated.
If we can’t discuss these considering what we are facing today, we won’t ever be able to discuss them.
Agree W.R.T. to H1-B. However the jobs they displace tend to be on the higher end of the renumeration scale, otherwise the companies that sponsor them would not be so hot to do so. So these are often (mostly?) well-paying typically “white collar” tech jobs. If these people are so valuable and irreplaceable let them form their own consulting agencies that allow them to “work from home” for whoever they wish. But I agree if you eliminated them all (10+ years, whatever) it’d be only a small dent in the overall unemployment figures.
The real issue are “migrants” that year over and essentially establish illegal residency. These are “blue collar”workers in service and agriculture where their employers are given a pass with a wink and a nod. This is the true problem. We need to head-on face what it means to have these be viable businesses in the US and change the law where necessary. It’s not a question of amnesty. They are here making agriculture, home repair, service jobs work that others don’t want because of the low pay and hard work. The work has to be done by somebody. Might as well figure out how to make it legal. It will be done by somebody, regardless of whether they are here legally or not. I’d rather have a good way of knowing that.
I’d like to also distinguish immigrants from refugees. I was not polled for what is written on the base of the Statue of Liberty. I wish it had been more carefully thought through and personally don’t agree with its wording as is. But there is a difference between wanting to move to a country so badly that you are willing to accept new and different language and cultural norms versus fearful flight to safety solely because of bad/evil people.
“I was not polled for what is written on the base of the Statue of Liberty.”
You do realize that twaddle was only put there because the–socialist, needless to say–writer helped raise money to build the pedestal?
They are here making agriculture, home repair, service jobs work that others don’t want because of the low pay and hard work.
That may be true of agricultural jobs but home repair and service jobs pay well enough for lots of Americans. The truth is that some companies hire the illegals so they can make more money by paying less to the people who do the work.
I have a son who makes a good living with his contracting business while paying fair wages (>50k) to Americans.
I hope that’s unduly pessimistic. If it turns out to be right, it will mean a lot more unemployed than just a portion of those that lost their jobs from the lockdown. A lot of businesses will fail.
It’s starting to dawn on even the dimmest pols that this is going to mean a lot of people not paying taxes this year and next. They’re still laboring under the illusion that Washington is just going to hand them a check to make it up.
The H1Bs are the ones willing to live five in room for a chance to work for Google or Facebook here cheap. If they go away, things will be even worse for California. If the code mines have to pay normal rates plus what it would take to get a sane person to live there, it’ll start to get interesting.
I suspect Republicans could get quite a few votes in California by scrapping the H1B program. Plus there’d be less censorship if Big Tech was actually staffed by Americans.