The small part of your post that I quoted didn’t sum up the spirit of your post and it wasn’t my intention to try to view your whole post in a negative light.
I bought that propaganda for years and I just try to stop it in it’s tracks anytime I see a statement alluding to poor people making bad decisions.
I don’t know how accurate this data is but it seems that people making less than 75K a year spent their money on things they need.
I was trying to not touch the third rail but likely did.
Anyhow, it was an observation. Personally I think we probably saw both occur across all economic levels
=Blowing some money in an ill advised fashion
=Belt tightening to the point of pain- I saw a report that says savings was going up and now going down.
=Everything in between.
I also struggle because I personally do not understand the value in a Gucci bag, etc. So I’m sure I put my own money priorities into it.
I knew a few solid middle class plus folks that when told they were getting laid off decided to run up credit cards and take bankruptcy as a way out. Trumponomics on a smaller scale.
The markets are already at all time highs. And I agree with you if the markets were tanking stimulus would have passed months ago.
There are signs the job market is leveling off at 8% unemployment. Covid is likely to be a thing for a while still. Mitch may be betting he can hang on to 51 seats which is very likely or at least 50+Manchin/Feinstein which is pretty likely.
Obama crushed in what sense? He got little accomplished because of Mitch. After the first two years he never held both houses of congress again.
Cuse pretty much nailed it. The other answer is that a certain poster was wildly exaggerating what would happen in order to label the people arguing the other side were monsters. Don’t get me wrong, people are suffering, but the predictions of 30 million homeless dying in the streets was always ridiculous and being used to make it seem like caving in stimmy talks was the only option.
Larraine didn’t put anything on layaway that day. But when her food stamps kicked in, she went to the grocery store and bought two lobster tails, shrimp, king crab legs, salad, and lemon meringue pie. Bringing it all back to Beaker’s trailer, she added Cajun seasoning to the crab legs and cooked the lobster tails in lemon butter at 350 degrees. She ate everything alone, in a single sitting, washing it down with Pepsi. The meal consumed her entire monthly allocation of food stamps. It was her and Glen’s anniversary, and she wanted to do something special. “I know our relationship may not have been good, but it was our relationship,” she said. “Some things I will not ever get over.” But the lobster helped.
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When Larraine spent money or food stamps on nonessentials, it baffled and frustrated people around her, including her niece, Sammy, Susan and Lane’s daughter. “My aunt Larraine is one of those people who will see some two-hundred-dollar beauty cream that removes her wrinkles and will go and buy it instead of paying the rent,” said Sammy, a hairstylist with her own shop in Cudahy. “I don’t know why she just doesn’t stick to a budget.” Pastor Daryl felt the same way, saying that Larraine was careless with her money because she operated under a “poverty mentality.”
To Sammy, Pastor Daryl, and others, Larraine was poor because she threw money away. But the reverse was more true. Larraine threw money away because she was poor.
Before she was evicted, Larraine had $164 left over after paying the rent. She could have put some of that away, shunning cable and Walmart. If Larraine somehow managed to save $50 a month, nearly one-third of her after-rent income, by the end of the year she would have $600 to show for it—enough to cover a single month’s rent. And that would have come at considerable sacrifice, since she would sometimes have had to forgo things like hot water and clothes. Larraine could have at least saved what she spent on cable. But to an older woman who lived in a trailer park isolated from the rest of the city, who had no car, who didn’t know how to use the Internet, who only sometimes had a phone, who no longer worked, and who sometimes was seized with fibromyalgia attacks and cluster migraines—cable was a valued friend.
People like Larraine lived with so many compounded limitations that it was difficult to imagine the amount of good behavior or self-control that would allow them to lift themselves out of poverty. The distance between grinding poverty and even stable poverty could be so vast that those at the bottom had little hope of climbing out even if they pinched every penny. So they chose not to. Instead, they tried to survive in color, to season the suffering with pleasure. They would get a little high or have a drink or do a bit of gambling or acquire a television. They might buy lobster on food stamps.
If Larraine spent her money unwisely, it was not because her benefits left her with so much but because they left her with so little. She paid the price for her lobster dinner. She had to eat pantry food the rest of the month. Some days, she simply went hungry. It was worth it. “I’m satisfied with what I had,” she said. “And I’m willing to eat noodles for the rest of the month because of it.”
Larraine learned a long time ago not to apologize for her existence. “People will begrudge you for anything,” she said. She didn’t care that the checkout clerk looked at her funny. She got the same looks when she bought the $14 tart balsamic vinegar or ribs or on-sale steak or chicken. Larraine loved to cook. “I have a right to live, and I have a right to live like I want to live,” she said. “People don’t realize that even poor people get tired of the same old taste. Like, I literally hate hot dogs, but I was brought up on them. So you think, ‘When I get older, I will have steak.’ So now I’m older. And I do.”
agree that the media jerked off to it but I’m not sure ordinary people knew or believed it without getting the money first
We’ve heard basically nothing about the EO unemployment since the week it was announced. Even from the derposphere. I assume it was mostly a flop?
This is why they’d rather give a one-time stimulus than a monthly payment. It’s like if you go into a store and get something free you know it was a special thing, if they give you 10% off everything for a couple weeks you know they can afford to do that and still turn a profit.
@StimAbuser is a good man who I believe does good work in his community helping his people and mum. 
Clothing should be down when kids are virtual and parents are working remotely, and it’s dangerous to go into a clothes store and try on clothes.
Regardless of income, clothing category should be down, even if we had UBI during the pandemic.
Wow. Downloading
It ended up being $1800 total (6 weeks of $300), which helped, but was nothing like $600/week every week. So was equivalent to a 3 week extension of CARES, but 2 months later.
Yeah I usually have to buy some work clothes every year and this year I’ve been wearing the same hoodie to work for 7 months now.
Have to rant here because I can’t do it on LinkedIn…
Head of the big lobbying group for my industry posts and article about the Democrats filibustering the Republican bill today, and makes a comment decrying the petty politics of (obviously Democratic) Senators for blocking something they support (extended PPP) just because they can’t get everything on their wish list.
Want to guess how many posts he’s made decrying the politics of the Republicans who have had the HEROES act on their desks for 7 months? Correct! Zero.
F off, man. Do your job without be so overtly MAGA. (Guy was a Republican state senator or assemblyman for like 10 years).
It’s a Halloween Miracle
I got 5 months Of PUA today. Over $20k, over $18k after withholding.
Got all my missing stimulus which included 4 weeks of the 300 variety.
Hopefully I don’t get a takes-backsie notice down the road.
Pretty big relief. I’ve kept in the projected budget but not on the liquid side. If the next package has any loan material I’ll be maxing whatever out.
Business picking up some. Getting some new clients but still making <<2k/month when $10k+ was more typical. Not travelling kills.
That’s great news!
Fuck
Yes.
That’s awesome man. Super happy for you. Hope this helps things stay afloat for the next few months.
Thanks all. Like I’ve note before, I have a pretty decent 401k but I really didn’t want to have to take a second hardship withdrawal. Already did 20k this spring.
