Las Vegas Follies: Goodman, Cooper, and Content Upon Content
Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman and CNN’s Anderson Cooper spent nearly twenty minutes of quality TV time together discussing coronavirus and local government. Let us take it in together:
Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman calls for businesses to reopen, while saying she won't provide social distancing guidelines on how to do so safely.
"They better figure it out. That's their job. That's not the mayor's job." https://t.co/kktKtDonFZ pic.twitter.com/R93lgQxDis
— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) April 23, 2020
“Wow, that’s really ignorant.”@AndersonCooper clashes with Las Vegas Mayor Goodman after she justified her wish to quickly reopen casinos saying, “this isn’t China, this is Las Vegas,” after he showed her a graphic of how coronavirus could spread in a restaurant in China. pic.twitter.com/w3QscYmiIH
— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) April 22, 2020
Luckily, Nevada’s governor doesn’t agree:
https://www.newsweek.com/nevada-governor-condemns-las-vegas-mayors-push-reopen-city-says-he-wont-allow-nevadans-1499651
But if I had to guess, I’d say Vegas got hit harder than nearly any other in terms of job losses.Report
I honestly wondered in part of that if she’d been drinking.
“This isn’t China” as if fluid dynamics behave differently over there from here.
My state’s governor is agitating to open stuff up. I personally doubt we’re at peak infection/death yet, so opening stuff up will just hasten that. I am privileged in that I can keep staying home, which I plan to do.
I sympathize with the people worried about losing business but I suspect there are enough people like me who are looking at the numbers and going “Nope, uh-uh, no way” at the idea of going back out and sitting in a restaurant or to a movie. I think we need to try to hang on for a while longer before rushing back outReport
Tell the folks who are out of jobs and have no money, who can’t even pawn stuff since pawn shops aren’t “essential”, and who aren’t getting f-tons of $ relief like Harvard, that they just need to die at home for “the greater good”. Tell the folks where the virus isn’t that widespread that those waiting for surgeries that aren’t “life threatening” right now to stay away from empty hospitals that are laying off healthcare workers.
Maybe we should balance the likelihood of a virus death against the future suicides folks with commit….or the crimes they’ll commit when they can’t feed their kids?Report
Harvard and Shake Shack returned the money that they borrowed. Will Republican favorite and Rush Limbaugh regular advertiser Ruth’s Chris do the same? I doubt it. Will you criticize Ruth’s Chris for getting money? I doubt it.
The thing that can help is basically massive and liberal welfare measures including rent and mortgage forgiveness with the banks paying landlords and the Feds backstopping the banks. The Federal Government could basically print money in the form of bonds with negative interest rates now. But they won’t because it goes against the deepest of Reaganite, Heritage Foundation, Cato, and Koch brother beliefs. They won’t because they still would rather have a paltry and onerous unemployment insurance system instead of realizing that sometimes it is necessary.
Reopening is not going to lead to crowded bars and long Yelp waitlist lines over night or even over the course of a month or two. People are still going to be cautious about doing activities that involve crowded spaces. The only thing reopening does is maybe get a small bump in business that leads to a bigger second wave of cases. The second wave will then overwhelm the healthcare system which will just crash the economy more.Report
“Harvard and Shake Shack returned the money that they borrowed. Will Republican favorite and Rush Limbaugh regular advertiser Ruth’s Chris do the same? I doubt it. Will you criticize Ruth’s Chris for getting money? I doubt it.”
Of course I will. What do you think I am? A hypocrite? Frankly, if anyone got the $ that didn’t need it they should give it back. But then again, you’ve already pigeonholed me haven’t you?
Keeping everyone in their home for 6 more months is a fantastic way to destroy our economy and devastate families, the tax base, and everything else…
When the global pandemic results in a global depression I think the “cure” is worse than the cure….Report
Ruth’s Chris returned the money.Report
One of the biggest discrepancies during this time of plague is who gets to work from home vs. who is now out of work. If you are one of the former, it makes sense to want to delay opening up an economy as your health is now of greater concern from the virus than being able to feed your family. On the other hand, if you are one of the 26 million who is now unemployed, it is another calculation. Feeding your kids, paying a mortgage and so on are now of greater importance than possibly getting COVID. Governors, mayors and other elected officials forget this at their peril. Newsmen forget this at their credibility.Report
There is no evidence that the people who can’t work from home are part of the group that is actively protesting the quarantine measures taken to fight Covid-19 even though they aren’t going to receive help in the United States like they would in other countries. The quarantine repeatedly polls very popular, with around eighty percent of the country supporting it. With this level of support, they can’t all be people working from home.
Nearly all of the quarantine supporters are dyed in the wool Trump supporters. The message has not been open up so that I can work but open up so that they the servant class could work and I can consume their services. These are not people who need everything open but more their shelter desires.Report
Here’s a line you can use, Lee: “The virus is patient.”Report
https://phys.org/news/2020-04-world-food-crisis-coronavirus-wto.html
An economy is an ecosystem, and every action has an impact on this. The longer we wait on reopening, the longer the recovery time. I don’t care about the protesters being Trump supporters, as they have every right to protest as BLM or Earth Day or any other group does. And it isn’t about the virus vs. work, it is aspects of life vs. aspects of life. If you are working right now, you are insulated from the very real, very immediate effects of a collapsing ecosystem.
3 million mortgages went unpaid last month, do you know the pressure that puts on banks? They can’t pay their loans, which will cause more of them to close, and further restrict loaning money. It restricts credit markets for businesses, putting pressure on retirement funds as the capital is needed for everyday activities. How do you think that will effect minorities? Further reduce their ability to move up the economic ladder. Do long term damage to their communities. A shortage of jobs means people will support immigration restrictions, which will put further pressure on your life directly, and for longer than sixty days.
Right now I am watching my business collapse, which means that 200-300 small businesses are collapsing. And each of those businesses employ people, people who are now out of work. They can’t pay for food, or clothes. Or dance lessons. Yes, they are your “servants” because those are jobs, they perform a service. That is how an economy works. And, though you are at a higher level, last time I employed a lawyer he and his firm were my servants.Report
That….really doesn’t track with my experience. I know it’s just anecdote–and I’m probably committing a logical fallacy or two–but most of the people I work with or am friends with are Trump opponents, and almost all of them support the quarantine measures.Report
https://www.vox.com/2020/4/20/21225016/protests-stay-at-home-orders-trump-conservative-group-michigan
Polling shows that quarantine is popular with like 80 percent of the nation. There is no evidence that the protestors are out of work because of shut down. I have seen plenty of protestors hold signs missing their haircuts and massages though. This is just right-wingers upset about having to get their own extra extra large sweet ice tea.Report
I have seen plenty of protestors hold signs missing their haircuts and massages though.
Quick reminder that you were complaining about nut-picking in another thread.Report
Thing is Saul, you’ve read up on the Spanish Flu in San Francisco. You already know that there is a cohort of people who will protest *any* restrictions on their freedoms; that there’s another cohort who will draw the line at things like mask wearing or social distancing; that at some point the chorus becomes so loud mayors and governors will roll back the restrictions; that a second wave will run through the community starting the whole process over again.
You have a brother who’s been itching to get back on the dance floor since the seventh day of the shutdown. Other people see their economic lives being destroyed. The frustration is only going to grow. Mayors and governors will relax the requirements. Maybe this time it will be different than in 1919. You don’t think so. Personally, I don’t think “reopening” the economy is going to give employment much of a bump *regardless* of whether there’s a second wave, though that outcome seems very likely. Hell, we aren’t even through the first wave yet…Report
I disagree. I think it fine to think quarantine sucks and to miss things but I don’t think Lee is going to risk it as soon as he can or is allowed.Report
But that’s just the point.
What we are considering is how humans behave and react to issues of their own mortality and risk.
And we know with certainty that people, generally speaking, don’t handle these issues very well or with rational decisions.
Right now there is one strategy that says we hunker down, despite it being painful, and wait until there are clear metrics saying it is safe.
Another is saying lets open now and take our chances.
You can say the first option fails to take into account people’s ability to quarantine, and you’d be right.
But the second fails to take into account how fear and panic change people’s behavior.
How will those people react, who want to go to Applebee’s, when a few weeks later one or two of their immediate family and friends become sick, to the point of death?
Will they continue to behave as before? All of our experience with human behavior says no. They will flip from nonchalance to panic in a heartbeat, and lash out in unpredictable and irrational ways.
We have seen this, in almost every emergency situation, we know it for a fact.Report
If the metrics in the Vox artice are right, then a lot of people were dramatically scaling back on going out even before the shutdown measures were enacted which indicates a lot of people are taking this seriously. Starbucks tried to remain open after shutdown because they could but protests from employees caused them to reconsider.
There were still people going out in San Francisco in the first two weeks of March. I was one of them. We went to get dinner with friends in San Mateo during the first weekend in March. That was at a popular Ramen joint and it was still jammed packed. But the next week was different. It was easy to get a table as a walk in and that has been almost impossible in San Francisco for several years.
What I think is going on with the “reopening” is more about ideology and negative partisanship. The negative partisanship is easy enough to understand. Shut down was first done by those libs in California, New York, and Washington (and PA) and the red-state governors need to stoke the “own the libs” base. It was what the Republican Party is primed to do, wage ideological warfare against others.
But for some other people, there is a real pain that pandemics might just be a crisis that goes against ideology. A former OTer with libertarian sympathies is quite open about this on FB or was. He thinks the pandemic is real and needs a response but that the response involves government shut down of commerce is a really hard bridge for him to cross. Pandemics clearly do not care about ideology on the size and scope of government and government powers though and pandemics do not care about economics.Report
But that’s just the point.
There are (broadly) two types of people in distress right now: folks who reflexively oppose any restriction on individual freedoms, and folks watching their economic lives being destroyed. The point was to not confuse them.Report
Have you ever considered that my ranting about dance might be about frustration over a greater issue than just mere dancing? I’m a thirty-nine year old lonely bachelor and this entire freaking social distancing thing might be necessary but to me it seems like the universe just finding another way to keep myself alone for longer even if that makes no sense in reality.Report
Yes, the REAL tragedy of Corona is your dating life.Report
I’ve been alone my entire life and this is extraordinarily insensitive. There always seems to be some reason beyond my control that is keeping me without a girlfriend. I didn’t have high school girlfriend, college girlfriend, law school girlfriend, mid to late 20s girlfriend, or 30s girlfriend. I’m approaching mid-life, really far behind with that aspect of my life compared to people my age and the entire track of the universe seems to prolonging this till the day I die.Report
Thing is… some people DID die due to Corona. Lots of them. My friend’s father died. I spent 16 days under tight quarantine alone with two children because their mother contracted it… and watched them talk to her through a glass door. My girlfriend’s father may lose his business. Her ex may lose his job and, with it, his ability to pay child support… which may put her deep into debt.
These are just a few of the struggles I’m personally connected to. And many are suffering so much more.
So, I get it, it sucks you can’t dance and may spend another year single. But a little fucking perspective goes a long fucking way. It’s you who is being insensitive.Report
Kazzy, people should be allowed to mourn the little deaths that they are surrounded by.
Sure, they shouldn’t engage in one-upping (that’s usually pretty bad) but even if someone is merely hungry for interacting with others despite the fact that they have a paycheck, they have access to food, and they have semi-decent entertainments available… well, they’re allowed to mourn small deaths.
Even if other people are mourning larger ones.Report
Thank you.Report
Well, my advice for you is far more presumptuous.
Try to be a little more aware of how good you have it. How good did you have it a year ago? Well, you didn’t notice. You’ve got it pretty good now. Try to notice.
Talk to your Rabbi. I am sure he has good advice for you.
And if you’re between Rabbis, I think I’ve found one of your problems.
See? Much more presumptuous.Report
What Jaybird said. I’m obeying the rules, I realize that I’m in a lot better place than others to get through this than many other people but this entire exercise still has many frustrations for me from being another hold on something that I really want and have been waiting for a long time; something that just won’t magically happen when all this is over and it will just be getting back into the fray and a lot of uncertainty about my economic and professional future. The fact that one of the few things in life that really made me happy can’t happen because of Covid-19 doesn’t help.Report
Do you want me to count how many “mourning” comments you’ve made?Report
As Matt Y pointed out yesterday, “opening the economy” will not save it:
“In Atlanta, for example, Mayor Keisha Bottoms announced on March 19 that she would ban in-house dining at noon on the following day. By that time, OpenTable bookings had already fallen by over 90 percent.
This is not purely an American phenomenon. In Ireland, the national restaurant association itself called for a closure order on March 16, citing overcrowding in some pubs. The government swiftly took their advice, but OpenTable bookings in Dublin had already fallen by 71 percent.
When states start to allow restaurants to resume sit-down service, some customers will come back. But it seems many won’t.”
Basically, there was a decline in people going out before the bans on eating out. I can attest to this from personal observation. There were times in the weeks before lockdown that restaurants were a lot less crowded. It was easy to get a table at places where you would normally need to wait an hour or more as a walk-in.
I’m not sure why so many politicians and “very important” pundits seem to think the economy will rocket back to normal as soon as things open up. Are people really going to risk going to bars? concerts? conferences? getting tattoos? massages? hair cuts? Maybe enough to create a bad second wave but not enough to save businesses.
Is it because own the libs is such a strong force that it produces strong knee jerk contrarianism? Or is it because a demand-based recession/depression induced by a global pandemic is such a force majeure event that it exposes the very rot of American inequality and demands solutions that are well outside recognized politics. Perhaps stuff like massive rent and mortgage forgiveness with the Fed backstoping the banks who need to pay the landlords. Or because politicians who purposefully made their unemployment systems paltry and onerous that they needed to reverse course quickly?
I suspect the answer is that a lot of politicians and libertarian to right pundits just have an extreme ideological aversion to anything resembling the dole and the fact that the dole might be necessary causes them serious psychological distress. It crushes their ideology and ideology is what protects their psychological and financial well-being. Plus pandemics involve one of the most necessary police powers and the “drown the government” crowd hates that.
So be “reopening”, not working becomes a choice and then you can make unemployment onerous and paltry again. In the end, the Victorian hate of welfare wins for these people.Report
A lot of right leaning libertarians have been posting an essay how shutting down doesn’t work to combat pandemics on my Facebook post. They really seem desperate to believe that if we kept everything open, the economy would just be fine and any aid unneeded.
Its really funny in a twisted form of way to see how people with anarcho-libertarian impulses are not dealing with Covid-19. The first told us that we don’t need shelter in place orders because people will engage in voluntary social distancing. That didn’t work out so well based on Sweden’s higher than other European countries infection and death rate from Covid-19. Even if people voluntarily social distanced, the economy was still going to kneel over because of that voluntary social distancing. If people didn’t do so then the infection rate and death rate would be even higher and this would cause an economic collapse.So it was loose-loose situation for them. Everything leads to economic collapse.Report
The human brain seems to protect psychological well-being above all-else. For some people this means ideology must trump and if something comes that shows weak spots or failures then…that things goes out the window.Report
What’s funny is even on their own terms, re-opening won’t do what they say it will.
Their assumption by people like Kemp and Dan Patrick is that the economy opens and hums along, but 2 or 3% of people die, but we just shrug and deal with it.
Except- that isn’t what happens, at all. Even if we were capable of shrugging off 3% of people dying, the much larger group of people who are sick enough to need hospitalization and the group even much larger than that who are sick but just stay home from work, will represent a colossal hit to the economy.
Start with the absenteeism, then add the diversion of consumer spending to medical bills and bankruptcies, then factor if the fear of illness which manifests in irrational ways where some businesses are in effect boycotted and some aren’t, and you have an economic collapse, regardless.Report
Exactly. If we open up but a big outbreak of Covid-19 happens, we still get a massive depression. People aren”t going to just ignore mass infections and death around them and go on with their lives.Report
How many days ago were you complaining that not everybody was an introvert who loves this sort of thing?
I ask not because I’m pulling a “HEY! GOTCHA!” but because you seem to recently have had a change of how you think about these things.
Can you remember how you thought about things when you said “Is it just hardcore introverts who love shelter in place making this comments? Have these people met other people? The weather is about to get nice and this is going to make people want to go outside.”
Because it doesn’t seem like you remember thinking that way.
I don’t mind you not thinking that way now. I think that the way you’re thinking about things now is more likely to keep you safe. I hope more people start thinking the way you’re thinking now.
But I am somewhat confused that you can’t even remember thinking the way you thought a short 18 days ago.
What changed your mind?
Because the arguments that changed your mind might scale and we may be able to get more people to change their minds if we can somehow capture what changed your mind from what you thought 18 days ago.Report
I think quarantine sucks but is necessary. Yes, there are lots of things I miss being able to do and those things might be away for longer than I like. Yes, I can get cabin fever and bored. But I think the pandemic would be much worse without it and the company would have suffered blows just as bad or worse.
Yes, I’d really like to get a haircut but I am not out there ordering London Breed and Gavin Newsom to open up and holding signs that say liberate California. I am under no illusion that that “reopening” will make things go back to normal over night.Report
But you went from “Introverts must love this sort of thing” to “hey, the people who want to tell the government to lighten up are bad”.
What caused you to flip the switch in how you thought about things?
Do you think that whatever-that-was can be put into words?Report
Reality. That’s a word.Report
I don’t know.
I was using the “The Virus Is Patient” line 18 days ago. I suppose I could say that I was able to see reality then and Saul wasn’t, but that doesn’t seem fair to Saul.
I was putting emphasis on a handful of things and he was putting emphasis on a handful of other things.
Since then, he’s come around to the “reality” (as you call it) position.
What got him to change his mind? Can we put what got him to change his mind into words?
Maybe, if we were able to put what changed his mind into words, we could craft an argument that would change more people’s minds.
There are a lot of people out there who seem to think about things the way that Saul used to. I’d like to change their minds the way Saul’s was changed. Some of them, surely, are as persuadable as Saul was/is.Report
I suppose Saul can speak for himself, but there doesn’t seem to me to be anything to explain. Early on, Saul expressed certain feelings he and others had. Later, he addressed facts, or his take on facts, rather than his feelings, which, for all that appears, are unchanged. Just a matter of what he chose to talk about.Report
So it’s about feelings and we’re not sure how to get other people to change from how Saul felt 18 days ago and get them to change to have an emphasis on facts today?
That’s the problem with feelings, I guess.
But if Saul noticed why he switched from feelings to facts, I’d like to know whether that’s something that we could figure out.
Maybe it’ll scale.
We want more of that sort of thing.Report
“You’re assuming he “switched.” On one day he talked about his feelings, which, to all appearances, haven’t changed. On another day, he talked about facts, about which, to all appearances, his views haven’t changed. It’s a matter of what he wanted to talk about on a particular day. What’s to explain? What’s to scale? Unless you want to set the terms of what people can talk about when. Maybe you “”want more of that sort of thing; We aren’t looking for a schoolmarm to tell us what to talk about whenReport
I noticed that his emphasis changed.
By changing his emphasis, his comments changed.
I’d be interested in knowing what, specifically, caused him to change his emphasis.
If we can capture it, maybe it’ll result in other people similarly changing their emphasis.
“Unless you want to set the terms of what people can talk about when. Maybe you “”want more of that sort of thing; We aren’t looking for a schoolmarm to tell us what to talk about when”
I’m not trying to set the terms. I’m trying to set the stage.
If we can show people the same stuff that Saul saw that got him to pivot, if not his position, his emphasis, then maybe we can get other people to change, if not their positions, their emphases.
(And given what Saul said about being willing to go out and congregate in the early days, there seems to be more going on here than what you seem to see. But, as you say, I’d like to see what Saul says why he went from “Is it just hardcore introverts who love shelter in place making this comments? Have these people met other people?” to his current emphasis? (Because, of course, his position didn’t change.))Report
“I noticed that his emphasis changed. By changing his emphasis, his comments changed. I’d be interested in knowing what, specifically, caused him to change his emphasis. If we can capture it, maybe it’ll result in other people similarly changing their emphasis.”
Jaybird, they don’t want the people people who are wrong to change, they want the people who are wrong to die.
If they change, hey, that’s great, but the point is not to get people to change, the point is to win the game, and the game they are playing is not one where two teams are left at the end.Report
There is no room for “it’s complicated” or complex thoughts on internet debates.Report
You seem to have swung around on what you’re emphasizing in less than 3 weeks, Saul.
You went from assuming that the people who want these policies must be introverts who enjoy them to expressing frustration that there are people agitating to open their states back up.
What did you encounter that made you change your perspective?
Maybe we can get other people to experience similar changes in perspective.
Getting more people to change from where you were to where you are would be a good thing.
Seriously: IT WOULD SAVE LIVES.Report
Saul? Saul has reasonable feelings he was reasonably expressing.
Others? Well… “ Is it because own the libs is such a strong force that it produces strong knee jerk contrarianism?“Report
It’s quite possible that the “negative partisans,” the “people who want to own the libs,” and the people with the “you’re not the boss of me” mentalities might also have complex thoughts, too.
Of course, I can think of many times when you’ve mischaracterized things I’ve said, or assumed away the “it’s complicated” parts of what I said in order to oversimplify. When someone pushes back, you usually don’t respond, as a rule.*
Now, just because you do it doesn’t mean that I or others are right to do it to you, but it is an opportunity to consider how you may have been inconsistent in your comments and at least acknowledge that we’re all pulled into different directions when it comes to living life on this earth. We all change our minds, or emphasize different, sometimes contradictory, things at different times.
It’s okay to be inconsistent. It really is. And sometimes a little goodwill in acknowledging that we all do it can go a long way to fostering more friendly discussions.
*I can see a good reason for that. Sometimes I get so upset with what someone says that I realize the better idea is to stop engaging. When I act on that realization, I almost never regret it. When I ignore it, I more often than not do regret it. And I’d venture that one has the almost categorical prerogative not to engage.Report
I was literally asking him to explain how his thought processes changed/evolved.
That whole “complex thoughts” thing?
I wanted them spelled out. I was explicitly saying that I had room for them.
(If he could figure out a way to put them into words, I’d still be interested in reading them.)Report
I would, too. But I think it’s also possible, as CJColucci suggested, that there wasn’t a change of mind so much as a change in emphasis.Report
I want to add that my comment was quite judgmental and critical. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been. I fall short of the mark, too, perhaps in ways more harmful to what I accused Saul of doing.Report
I am fine with “I used to see X as a 3 and Y as a 7, now I see X as a 7 and Y as a 3.”
I want to know how that evolution occurred.Report
Speaking for myself only, I would *LOVE* it if people asked me that type of question. It’d be an invitation to talk about myself and my own thinking about things.Report
Did your thinking evolve over the last month or so?
Did you go from something like “the only people who like the lockdown are introverts” to “I can’t believe that people are agitating to get out of the house!” over two and a half weeks?
If so, what changed your mind?Report
My thinking has evolved, but in the opposite direction. Initially it was, “Let’s lockdown. That’s what the experts are telling us to do. Work within the bounds but follow the rules.” For a variety of reasons, including…
…the tightening of the rules in increasingly ridiculous ways (the governor of NJ threatened to station a police car outside a drive-thru tulip farm and arrest anyone who dared enter… though only did this to one tulip farm and not other… prompting the girlfriend and I to jokingly avert our eyes from any tulips we saw while walking lest we find ourselves in jail).
…evidence suggesting the situation is improving and, as such, we should be considering changes to our approach. I won’t pretend to know exactly what those changes are, but when dealing with an unprecedented situation where we can’t rely on existing strategies, I think it is important that plans remain fluid, dynamic, and responsive. I’m… not seeing that. Which gives me less trust in the leaders and their plans.
… reader others (including Hanley on Facebook) helping me realize we have to consider this from multiple perspectives and weight a variety of factors when determining policy.
Now, that’s a bit different than what has been asked of Saul because it isn’t so much, “What do I think about other people?” and is more “What do I think about what should be done?” though they are obviously related. Folks who were eschewing the rules in my area covered the full gamut that I couldn’t ascribe one particular motivation to them (or, conversely, one particular motivation to those who doggedly followed the rules).Report
Yeah, my main thoughts are around the form of “this is (relatively) easy for me because I can work from home and get delivery of groceries… but the people who are delivering my groceries can’t work from home… and there are people out there who can’t work from home and can’t delivery groceries…” and I don’t know what the best plan forward is.
I mean, a “maybe it’s good enough?” plan would be to send everybody in the US a check, no means testing, no nothing, and tell them “use this to stay afloat, if you don’t need it, donate it to people who need it” and get a handful of handsome celebrities to ostentatiously make a big show out of donating their check to a food bank or something.
Get mortgage relief (like move the payments to the back end for 3 months). Get rent relief (like move landlord mortgage payments to the back end for 3 months).
And then see where we are…
But that’s an expensive plan and it benefits a lot of people and it costs to a lot of politically powerful people and so I don’t know how realistic it is.
I mean, look at the last bill they tried to pass.
But I know this can’t last forever.
And it seems like there’s a Depression hiding behind the virus. Like, a global one… that can’t be helped, really, because of the sheer number of people who can’t work. Not because there are no jobs, but because they can’t leave the house without a reasonable chance of death.
This whole thing sucks.Report
Thanks for asking!
My thinking did evolve. Everyone’s evolves. My thinking didn’t evolve so dramatically, but I’ll confess that it’s easier for me, as an introvert, to handle work at home,* and my sense has “evolved” over the last few weeks to “heck ya, it’s a lot easier for me,” especially because my spouse, who is an extrovert, seems (to me) to be having a harder time.
Even so, I haven’t gone whole hog to the ad hominem attack that says, “those people disagree with me because of some personality trait they were probably born with or have little control over (and not, say, because they have complicated thoughts like everyone else does).” But I do confess that ceteris paribus, it’s easier for me to weather the storm. For now.
And to be clear, I don’t “like” the lockdown. I hate it. I hate what it’s doing to our economy and what it’s doing to people who aren’t fortunate like me. I accept that it’s necessary, but I hate it. I also fear what the world is going to look like next month, year, decade, etc.
I also don’t personally “like” it, even if we could extract all that. True, I’m not someone who goes out a lot anyway and I’m much more comfortable getting my energy by being alone, but I dislike this mostly voluntary self-imprisonment (again, with the necessary proviso that I have it much, much better than the large majority of people).
*Says one who’s lucky enough to work at home.Report
My point, and Saul has been involved in this thread enough to have told me if I misunderstood him, is precisely that Saul didn’t “used to see X as a 3 and Y as a 7” and then change later to seeing X as a 7 and Y as a 3. He simply chose on Monday to talk about X and on Friday to talk about Y because that is what he felt like talking about on those days. There is no “evolution” to explain. Now maybe I’m missing something, but if the question is what Saul said, thought, or felt, I’ll go with Saul’s take on it over Jaybird’s.Report
So on Monday it was “I feel like talking about how silly it is to think that people will be willing to stay inside, the only people who like the lockdown is introverts” and on Friday his feelings were telling him that the people who want to leave the house are only doing it to own the libs.
And there is nothing else there? Just feelings and talking about them and some days you feel things and other days you feel different things?
Am I getting that right?Report
Ask the man himself. Or is that too much like finding things out?Report
I did?Report
The link doesn’t work so I re-read the whole thread. It starts out with you assuming that Saul changed his mind and asking why. You never asked if he had changed his mind; you asked him to explain an “evolution” that you perceived, the existence of which is disputed and no one in a position to know has confirmed. Better Call Saul.Report
I guess I’m not understanding the distinction that seems easy for you to see.
For me, if I said something where I came out and said “I think the motivations of the people who disagree with me on Policy P are have the following motivations M” due to my feelings, I’d like to think that I’d remember saying that when my feelings change and now I’m feeling entirely different things about Policy P and I’m musing about the motivations of people who think the things that I thought 18 days ago.
To the point where you’re defending Saul by saying “well, he feels things” strikes me as not a defense but as a rather withering attack.Report
If you can’t see it, you can’t see it. What one feels about Policy P and what one thinks about Policy P and what one thinks motivates others about Policy P are all separate issues, and no one is obliged to put all three topics on the table at the same time, or in some prescribed order. Maybe Saul’s views on these three topics are a muddle, and maybe they have changed, but you haven’t tried to make that case. For the third time, I’ll suggest that you go to the source and find out if he actually said or thought or felt what you read him as having said or thought or felt before demanding that he explain something that might not exist at all.Report
Maybe Saul’s views on these three topics are a muddle, and maybe they have changed, but you haven’t tried to make that case.
If it is the case that there is a third option, I’d like to know what it is.
I thought that “his opinion changed” was the charitable interpretation of what happened.
You seem to be making the case that there are less charitable interpretations out there. I already know that. It seems odd to argue that I should, instead, assume those.
But I’ll ask.
Hey! Saul!
Is it the case that your posted opinions here are likely to be little more than gut rumbles?Report
I don’t know how it is less “charitable” to think that Saul was expressing his views on different topics at different times, e.g., how he feels about something one day, what he thinks about it on another, than demanding an explanation for some inconsistency that, so far, only you perceive. But the way you phrased your “question” to Saul suggests that we have different notions of charity. Now, however, the ball is in Saul’s court, and I’ll leave it to him whether he wishes to engage.Report
Well, let’s look at Saul’s first statement:
“Is it just hardcore introverts who love shelter in place making this comments? Have these people met other people? The weather is about to get nice and this is going to make people want to go outside.”
“Is it because own the libs is such a strong force that it produces strong knee jerk contrarianism?”
Which of these was him thinking?
Which of these was him emoting?
How can we tell the difference in the future?
Again: I think “Hey, I changed my mind” is more charitable to him.
And, don’t forget, he made the following statement:
Which, seems to me, indicates that he was not talking about his “feelings” but about his complicated/complex thoughts on things.
Which I’m asking him to expand upon.
And, for some reason, which you are dismissing and running with the “sometimes he says things because he feels things strongly but he doesn’t *REALLY* mean them, but that doesn’t make them any less valid” explanation.Report
Has this reading comprehension problem been life-long? I never said anything that would suggest to a minimally-competent reader of English that Saul doesn’t *REALLY* mean what he says. I have said, over and over, that I thought he was addressing two different things, his feelings and his thoughts, at two different times. Both of which he really meant. Thoughts and feelings are two different things; you can feel one way and think another without any inconsistency. If you’re confused about which is which, ask him, don’t put words into his mouth and demand he explain an inconsistency of your own making.
As for “it’s complicated,” my guess is, though I wouldn’t attribute it to Saul without asking, that he was thinking of a comment thread that you hijacked some time back, with precisely that phrase, mocking people who preferred to talk about the complicated things that people might disagree about with than the simple things nobody disagreed with. That guess might be wrong, and Saul is free to correct me if he thinks it worth doing, but I’m not demanding that he explain himself. He can ignore my error, if it is one, at which I will not take the least offense. He seems to be ignoring you, and since this squabble, such as it is, is really between you and Saul, I should probably follow his lead hereafter.Report
Yes, my reading comprehension problem has been life-long.
That’s why I ask clarification questions.
And notice things about where and when we should have charity when we read the things that others say.Report
I do think CJColucci has a point. Your “why did you change your mind”* question is a complex question, requiring the one answering to concede they have changed their mind.
I don’t think that’s a reading comprehension issue, though.
*I forget the exact wording, but I’m not going to go up and reread everything.Report
Here’s one of the ways I put it:
I mean, let’s look at these two comments:
“Is it just hardcore introverts who love shelter in place making this comments? Have these people met other people? The weather is about to get nice and this is going to make people want to go outside.”
and
“Is it because own the libs is such a strong force that it produces strong knee jerk contrarianism?”
From where I sit, the second statement seems to have been made without any of the insight contained in the former.
Like, I am a supporter of the lockdown (even as I’m going stir-crazy). But I also know that I am employed, working from home, and I have an army of delivery people driving food to my house.
I know that my lifestyle is only possible because of the sheer number of people putting themselves at risk and there are a lot of people out there who see the grocery delivery people as the *LUCKY* ones because the delivery folks are employed and have no shortage of work to do.
And I know that the motivations behind the shutdown are not because introverts don’t mind sitting in basements.
And I know that the people agitating to open up the economy again aren’t doing this out of some anti-liberal kneejerkism.
But there are people out there who really, really, really want to get back to work and are likely to see the lockdown rules as an infringement on their lives rather than as a prophylactic measure trying to keep as many people alive and healthy as possible… and if there were a way to get them to switch from that to “man, the lockdown is the only thing that makes sense! The only people who oppose it must have an agenda!”, I’d like to know what that entailed.
Maybe we can keep more people home.
And the argument that Saul, at not point, changed his mind between those two sentences strikes me as… what’s the word the kids use today? “Gaslighting”, I think it is.
It seems obvious that he changed his mind between the two statements.Report
My bad. If I had gone up to reread, I can see that you were clearer than I accused you of being.Report
Bomus Trump throws Kemp under the bus for the decision to reopen. This would be darkly comedic if the stakes were not so high and the predictability not so pathetic. Trump always throws his lickspittles under the bus and seemingly they all keep falling for it again and again:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/us/trump-georgia-governor-kemp-coronavirus.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=HomepageReport
What’s particularly ironically tone deaf about the China comment is that the Vegas Tourism marketeers have spent a lot of effort, successfully, this past decade to increase the number of visitors from China. It’s now fifth place behind Canada, Mexico, UK, and Australia. And was on pace to overtake Australia in a year or two.
https://www.lvcva.com/stats-and-facts/visitor-origin/Report
It makes no sense to me why the bulk of the money needs to be laundered through businesses. Why not prioritize payments to individuals and limit loans to the true mom and pops? They’re the ones who need it and if some big businesses fold because they didn’t save for a rainy day? Well who cares that’s just capitalism.Report
The primary goal of the PPP was to incentivize employee retention to keep both employees and small businesses solvent on the expectation that, once corona passes, everyone hits the ground running. It’s a good theory, but one which didn’t survive first contact with the US Congress.
Add: if Congress were actually *serious* about employee retention and small business solvency it would have had no upper bound on funds allocation. Both last time and this it’s a “first come, first served” model. Congress knows the allocations are insufficient.Report
I hear you but I’m still not sure it makes sense (at least not by itself) when the big pain is going to be 20-30 million service sector folks needing to make rent, pay for groceries, etc. Individuals including but not only the folks who own those thin margin businesses should be getting cash. And 1200 bucks ain’t going to cut it.
It seems like we’re just hell bent on doing this in an indirect way with the foreseeable consequence that people who aren’t able to hold out are starting to panic.Report
A friend of mine, whose day job is CEO of a small energy company, also owns a pizza restaurant (*).
My friend tried to apply for the PPP the day it opened. The two banks he works with (Wells Fargo and Capital One) were not processing applications. He had to open an account in a third bank (my friend is friend’s with an executive of Bank #3), apply there, got approved almost instantly (being a CEO meant he had all his paperwork neatly done) and was told that the program was out of funds.
Mom and pap businesses never had a chance.
(*) long, sweet, story. My friend’s brother runs the pizza place full time, but the brother didn’t have the capital or credit to set it up, and my friend had it. Now the brother is contributing all his sweat in exchange from a salary and a share in the profits.Report
As an aside, my friend is surprised how much they are making in pick-up and delivery. Not enough to cover their expenses, but much more volume than they figuredReport
My wife and I are ordering takeout/delivery from the places we frequent as much as we can in hopes that others as lucky as us do the same, and at enough volume to keep them afloat. Hasn’t been great for the waistline but then none of this has been, and again, I consider myself lucky that my only real challenge so far is keeping myself from eating too much junk.Report
“It makes no sense to me why the bulk of the money needs to be laundered through businesses. ”
Because they tried “let’s just write everybody a check” and people were very upset at the idea of rich dudes getting the same check as poor dudes.Report
Rich dudes didn’t get checks. Hell most middle and upper middle class dude didn’t get checks. But again as always nice try.
That said, a lot of right leaning politicians (and centerists to boot) have long bought into the notion that if you give people a safety net so they have one or two less stressful things to deal with, said less stressed people will become layabouts and slothful vagrants. There is NO data anywhere to support that notion, but it sure seems like it could be true.Report
‘Rich dudes didn’t get checks. Hell most middle and upper middle class dude didn’t get checks. ”
…Yes? That’s what I said?
“a lot of right leaning politicians, npcmeme npcneme etc.”
Well. A lot of right leaning [sic] politicians wanted to just write everybody a check, but apparently just taking that W was too much for a lot of left-leaning politicians.Report
Um no that’s in no way the same as
Because your first sentence describes something that never occurred (and was actively opposed by Senate Republicans) while mine describes what did occur. I am unaware of any right leaning politicians who just wanted to write everybody a check, I am aware of 1 who thinks the best way to get past this is to let states, cities and counties go bankrupt. I am aware of many who support the President having no oversight for the $500BN portion of the initial stimulus package that his treasury secretary gets to dole out. I am also aware that is was left-leaning Senators (including Bernie Sanders) who proposed $2000 a month in universal income support, not Republicans.
But hey, feel free to show your work and change my mind.Report
Pelosi *insisted* that cash payments were means tested. Do I have to dig out the tweet sent by her deputy CoS again?
OK. Here it is. March 17, 2020.
Report
I don’t twitter so no I wasn’t aware of that.
Her point however – which I endorse – is that if money is going to go to citizens it should go to those who need it most, not those at the top who need it least. Given what we saw with publicly traded companies (many with cash reserves) getting Paycheck Protection Program loans that were meant for actual small businesses, I’d say her concerns were well founded.
That aside, @Density clearly wrote that giving everyone checks had been tried. It hadn’t. And your requoting of the Speaker’s staffer doesn’t support his position, clarifying though it may be.Report
Her point however – which I endorse – is that if money is going to go to citizens it should go to those who need it most
Well, the people who need it most are a) unemployed folks and b) small business owners, neither of which fall neatly if at all into income-based “need it most” categories. In my opinion, Pelosi bogged down the entire process – and made it worse – because she valued a silly class-based political signal more than effective policy.Report
I’ve seen multiple analyses that around 80% of the tax “incentives” that made it into the final initial package accrued to people with incomes of $1M or more. Like it or not those folks don’t need the benefits.
Unemployed people need the benefits regardless of income. Small businesses need help but the statistics on the initial PPP loans don’t show thats where the funds went.Report
Why did Pelosi allow such a bill to pass?Report
1) She’s not as liberal as Republican political operatives make her out to be.
2) the bill had some things in it she supported and some things that would help not big businesses.
3) She’s old school Washington and still believes in compromise.
Or some combination of those three.Report
#KatiePorterforSpeakerReport
I’d be VERY ok with that?Report
I’d vote for that.Report
Banks made $10 Billion in fees loaning to their existing customers in the initial tranch of the PPP. There’s all the reason you need as to why the money went the way it did.Report
When you lie wit Trump….
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/22/politics/trump-pence-georgia-governor-brian-kemp/index.html?utm_term=link&utm_source=twCNN&utm_content=2020-04-23T00%3A20%3A54&utm_medium=socialReport