FROM THE MOUNTAINTOPS AND ROOFTOPS THEY SHOULD BE SHOUTING THIS!
Also, “Republicans are like that boss you hate who makes three times as much money as you, makes you do all the work while taking long lunches and leaving early, blames everything bad on you and takes all the credit for your work. Coincidentally, most of those bosses probably vote for Republicans because doing all that to you isn’t enough, they want to cut your Social Security and get themselves lower taxes.”
First, as for not having empathy, I cried like four days in a row in March when I realized how massive this financial crisis was going to be and how much suffering there would be. I didn’t expect any of it to be my own personal suffering, now I think it probably will be. I sobbed the first day. I fucking care.
But the long term victory means less suffering, death and homelessness for them in the long run. Nobody here is actively willing to trade more death or homelessness for a “win” we think that a win is less overall death and homelessness from this crisis, and we think that Dems standing their ground and demanding the full $600 until at least January etc etc is how that is accomplished, regardless of whether that means the GOP caves in or lets this get out of control bad.
The immediacy of suffering and the degree of it are awful and it’s hard emotionally not to just want to immediately stop that, I get it and agree with how you’re feeling… But Dems job is to make good, logical decisions to help their constituents the most overall, not to do what feels easiest in the immediate moment. I fully believe playing hardball now will save the max lives and prevent the max hardship/suffering.
I also want to point out that the reason we’re in this situation is that the Dems have systematically caved in every one of these less severe situations for several years. It always feels like you have to cave, I’ve even advocated for it in the past in some situations. Save them now, fight more later. But eventually “we’ll fight harder later” turns into never. The Dems have handled previous situations poorly in hindsight. Saying they have to cave now is like saying we have to open the schools because we fucked up so much earlier in the pandemic that we’re out of options.
Likewise, I graduated into the last recession and never made more than $13K in a year off my major. I had to work 2-3 jobs to scrape by and only accumulate like 8-10K of debt over a few years instead of way more. At one point as a recent college graduate I applied to 100 service/retail/menial jobs in a week. I literally walked shopping malls looking for a retail job. I didn’t get one off the 100 applications.
When it comes to Republican policy costing people money and impacting careers, I also lost a ton of potential income due to UIGEA. My plan was to grind online, where I was making $50/hr multi tabling 50NL and use that to make supplemental income for broadcasting. That going away led to me being in poverty for years, building up debt, then digging out of it and grinding my way to 2/5 when I started trying to go pro in 2014 at live poker. I know what it’s like to walk into a social services office and apply for Medicaid. I know what it’s like to wonder if you’ll be able to get healthcare (pre-ACA), to charge living expenses and not know when you’ll be able to pay them off, etc.
The amount of money that cost me is a really big number, to the extent that I could have been in a position now where I owned my home outright (and didn’t have to deal with landlords), had my retirement set pretty nicely, and was in a much better position to ride this out.
So I know what it’s like to be on the wrong end of bad policy. I just want the minimum amount of suffering for people over the long run, I’m not willing to get drawn into the immediacy right now and ignore the big picture.
I’m in a position where I would personally benefit immensely from extending CARES and another round of stimulus. I grinded my way up to stakes where I could make good money about a year ago. I was just starting to really make some progress toward a long term strong position financially. No the games are deteriorating here, if my income goes to $0 as I fear, if/when we get out of this, I may be back in the grinder trying to get back to making the kind of money where I can get ahead of the game and secure my financial future.
It’s not homelessness or starvation in the next few months, but it’s not nothing either.
It might, but that wouldn’t mean it was right. Ultimately it’s, suffer for a few months now or defer it and likely suffer for a few years later. People might say just end my current suffering, get me out of the current mess, we’ll deal with the rest later… but that doesn’t make it the right move.
Nah, you can’t blame Democrats for any of this.
-
They passed HEROES on May 15, three months ago. The Senate hasn’t voted on it, or anything for that matter.
-
They’d pass a clean extension of CARES through January. That’s a non-starter for the GOP.
-
The GOP is shooting the hostages. We’re just not agreeing to give them band aids and no additional help for months on end. If you were just shot in the gut and bleeding out, would you settle for a band aid, or would you demand an ambulance?
This is exactly why it is essential to not give them a short-term victory that doesn’t even cover the lame duck, thus increasing the chances that they have the power to block help in the future. After this, there is no more help unless Dems control all three branches. You just made our case for us.
So if it’s lasting through December, that’s basically five months so about 20 weeks. That’s 7.35M payments per week. Unemployment is officially 10.2% right now, which means about 16M people unemployed give or take. So either they’re going to DQ more than half of unemployed people or it’s going to run out twice as fast.
My guess is they project a lot of states not to be able to kick in the $100, and then they’ll blame the governors.
What you’re essentially saying is that if you’re in that position, the only thing you will factor in is your short-term survival for one month. This is the type of thing that leads people to make desperate decisions with bad long-term repercussions. It’ll put 5-10 times as many people in the same position in a couple months, which will be way worse. The Dems job is not to make an emotional and irrational decision, it’s to minimize the damage and suffering in the medium-long run (6 months to 3 years).
Nunn, I like you man, we agree on a lot and I enjoy discussing politics and business with you. Next time I’m in your neck of the woods, I’d love to buy you a beer and talk. But on this take a second, take a breath, and remember this: we all agree about Barr. He’s a massive threat to democracy. What we are saying is he was obviously never being impeached by this Democratic Party run by Pelosi and Schumer. That’s all, that’s what we were saying. It’s was never about SHOULD he, it was WOULD he.
But eDems caved on that, and wussed out. Cause it’s what the eDems do.
They can accomplish it into November, not beyond. Then there won’t be shit for help at any point going forward if the GOP holds any chamber or the White House. So you’re advocating for getting about 3 months of help now, with a MAJOR risk of getting zero help whatsoever at any point after that. You seriously want to make that deal?
Even if Meadows is telling the truth, are you willing to trade $600 til the end of November for absolutely nothing for a minimum of 2-3 months after that, and for 2+ years if the GOP holds the Senate or White House? Remember if they get the help short-term through, it significantly boosts the GOP’s odds of holding onto something.
It’s not an unknown variable, it’s a quantifiable variable. And it’s a really bad one. REALLY bad.
You can argue over which strategy will save more lives, but full stop we all think like 10x as many people die and lose homes under your strategy as under ours. So it’s not about us being bad people, careless, lacking empathy, etc. It’s about us doing calculus to estimate a variable based on everything we know about the situation. You’re treating it as some variable that can’t possibly be known and saying we have to completely disregard it.
But again, we have tons of empathy, we all want to save the most lives. We think the right way to do that is not to cave here. You disagree, which is fine, but it’s not about empathy.
That’s exactly what we’re doing. With your strategy we prevent 3 months of suffering now, we guarantee 3 months of suffering after the election (when you admit the GOP will do nothing at all regardless of who wins), and we increase the likelihood of years of suffering later.
Under our plan we EITHER get the GOP to gave now OR take 3 months of suffering now, almost certainly 3 months of suffering after that, and almost certainly minimize all future suffering after January 20, 2021.
If no money comes in, the GOP cannot win.
If money comes in, the GOP has a much better chance of winning.
Now apply that to all the rest of your calculus.
We’re five months away from inauguration day, assuming this would be retroactive to 8/1, almost six months. You’re advocating for accepting an extension until mid-November, which is 3.5 months. So to be precise you’re advocating for 58% measure that increases the GOP’s odds of winning and thus increases the odds of ZERO measures going forward.
And you’re blaming the Democrats for it.
I voted no, it would be yes through the end of January.
A) Strong aid packages going forward as needed, and as quick of an economic recovery as actually possible from the hell we’ll be in when Biden is sworn in.
B) No additional aid until 2023. (Maybe another band aid for a few months right before the 2022 election just like this one they want.)
C) No additional aid ever.
D) No additional aid ever.
This is your problem. It’s not only predictable, the scenarios are all obvious.
Then it’ll be worse in the fall/winter.
You really want to bed lives on that? Damn man, that lacks empathy.
No matter what happens nothing will be done in the lame duck because the GOP wants to do nothing, the GOP has the power to block everything, and the GOP has zero electoral ramifications for doing nothing after the election.
No matter what happens, nothing will be done in the lame duck.
Which also means landlords and lenders can expect full balloon payments shortly after the inauguration, which means people probably stop being evicted.
This is the one scenario where the GOP may do something in the lame duck. If Dems control everything out of the election, and Biden, Pelosi and Schumer declare what will pass on 1/20/21, the GOP may elect to let it happen sooner than later because it doesn’t really make any difference.