You just have absolutely no clue what you’re talking about.

People, I think, aren't thinking about the consequences, some of which are baked in at this point.

It's not "people just want to go to Red Lobster." But it's also not just 36 million unemployed. It's EVERYTHING.

-It's the fact that we are letting out criminals from jail. Cook county let out something like 25% of inmates. Also, people getting arrested are being released and told they will eventually get a warrant for their arrest. When will that be, if ever? Can our judicial and legal system handle ALL of these cases being called in at once in addition to the new cases that will rack up? Of course not. Oh, and when you are releasing criminals has anyone ask "hey what are they going to do for money in this shitty economy?" Of course not, no one has asked any serious question unless it revolves around corona. So we are releasing criminals with ZERO chance of them being employed- what could go wrong?

- People are donating a lot less. This is huge and will have a ripple effect. I've noted this before, but my girlfriend works for a marketing agency that works with nothing but non-profits. Her first campaign, which was for a children's hospital in Ireland, saw a 48% decrease in donations from respondents. This was the largest year-over-year decrease her CEO said they've ever seen...in 15 years.

-My friends dad owns 5 Mexican restaurants here in Arkansas. I asked her how the opening went last week and if they can survive. She said "We can survive but we are doing half to go orders, half dine-in. We rehired everyone back and raised their pay but some of them didn't want to come back to work because of the money they are making through unemployment, so to answer your question, probably no in the end." Even if we open things, it could take months for things to get back to normal and things WONT get back to normal until the government stops paying people 2,400 dollars a month ON TOP of their normal unemployment. This is the classic case of the government trying to do good but having horrible blowback. WHY ON EARTH would you go back to making 1,500 a month when you can sit at home and do nothing? And the Democrats want to extend this until January, they are insane.

-My mom can now get her thyroid surgery. However, it's going to take awhile. Her doctor, who she knows quite well, said that they have cut staff and there is a rush of people wanting to be seen so she is now looking at waiting almost a month for a surgery that she originally was supposed to be waiting 3 days for. My brother inlaw is a rad tech, he's been working roughly 20 hours a week. Him and my sister were in the market to buy some land and build a house, no longer. They are going to sit where they are at and wait to see what happens with his job and the housing market before they make a huge purchase.

-Keeping people "afloat" is not the same as keeping people prospering. Period. It seems people don't understand this. Also, the government help will end, and then what? Of course some will say CONTINUE HELPING but the answer to that is that we can't afford 2 trillion dollars a month. We would up spending 100% of our GDP on government spending.

- The longer this lockdown lasts, the more big companies and the internet-based companies win. There is zero question about this. What will cities look like in the future? Horribly boring. Population loss, vacant offices, restaurants gone, retail gone, and crime up.

-If someone spent a lifetime building a business and it goes under, there is NOTHING the government can do for them, nothing. Starting a business isn't some mathematical equation, it's time, effort, luck, and hard work. It won't come back tomorrow. How many small businesses will be lost after all this is done? It will be massive, even if it's just 10% of businesses. Those families will now have to find another income source, will it be as good as their former source? Chances are no. Most small business owners probably don't have the education or skills to do anything but the work they already did. Where will their employees go? Who cares. What will that do to the existing market? Obviously, it will make things more expensive for others. If you have 10 businesses in town that do some job and now you only have 5, things will get more expensive.

- Three decades of job gains have been lost. HOW LONG will it take to gain those back? No one here knows this. I might be 40-50 years old before it fully recovers.

-Kids are getting screwed. A second-grader on zoom? YEAH RIGHT. And now the writing is on the wall. Teacher unions will resist any and all openings that are workable. The hysteria in America is laughable really, and it's anti-science. But who cares, it makes for nice headlines on CNN. Fuck the kids.

-No tax revenue, no money for local governments. No money for local governments, no services or road repairs etc. We could give everyone in America check, every month. But if they DON'T SPEND IT, then it means absolutely nothing for the economy. It seems people aren't understanding this point. How many people with jobs just pocketed the 1,200 dollars because of the uncertain future? I put 600 into savings because of the crazy economy. I imagine a lot of other folks we're doing the responsible thing and saving the money for the unknown.

- How many places like Orlando or Las Vegas will be facing worst-than-great-depression economic situations? What will that look like, does anyone know? Of course not, no one knows. But then we have idiots going around acting like everything will be AOK once we open up. They aren't doing this based on history or sound economic theory, they are saying this because their religion is #stayathome and they will believe in anything possible to make their position stronger.

- How many people are going to buy homes or cars right now? My girlfriend's job is quite secure at this point, but she is even worried and has started putting a little more in savings than spending based on an uncertain future.



All of these things and 10,000 other issues are all related and aren't going to be fixed by some bullshit government check. The fear-based hysteria the media has been spewing for almost three months now has created enough fear that people are still agreeing with shutdowns, are excusing away our MASSIVE economic issues, and are still saying people that want to open up don't care about people dying. The senator from Ohio said it just yesterday during a hearing. "How many people are you willing to die in order to add .5% to the GDP." That bastard said that. An elected official. When that is what "leaders" are saying, you know the idiots on the ground are also saying insane shit like that.

People control the economy. People do not control mother nature. If you take nothing else away from this pandemic experience, you should take away that lesson.

A few articles on how things are going around here:

Coronavirus forces Murphy, N.C. musician to be stuck at sea for 56 days

Asheville restaurant persists in defying governor's stay home order

Not all restaurant owners ready to resume indoor dining

From cocktails to toilet paper: Restaurants, bars, serve as markets during COVID-19

At some point you come to the conclusion that there may be lots of people who are just enjoying this. There is a subtle desire among some to see a great “equalizer” in society, and to see those who’ve economically done well now suffer.

Problem is, a lot of people who were already poor before are only going to be worse off and dependent on Governm—.........ahhhh yes........wait a sec....very sneaky. Now it’s making sense. This multi-decade march toward making Government our Daddy in every walk of life is a tide that I am too small to turn. So perhaps I should run for political office? If you can’t beat um, join um. :hmmm:

Are people seeing out-of-staters in their area? This is a question for people in states that began to reopen and for people in states that did not begin to reopen.

I am seeing so many cars from New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maine, Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New York, and so on. They are not just on I-95, passing through, but they are also driving around the towns and in store parking lots and all. I can't imagine that all of these people are essential.

The suffering is disproportionately service workers. People in career jobs (myself included) are mostly doing fine, aside from temporary drops in our retirement accounts. It sounds like you're projecting.

This is not at all true. There are salary cuts being implemented across white collar sectors, and people who depend on bonuses or other discretionary payments (or actual payments from clients for success) are fucked. They are obviously losing a lot more in nominal terms than people at or close to minimum wage. This is disrupting life plans (e.g., only an idiot would start a family this year).

Again, lock down the old folks and open everything else up (as in normal activity). Or let them take the risk if they want to. I don’t really care.

That's the problem, people should NEVER depend on bonus payments. They should be looked at as gravy on top of regular pay should a situation like the one we're currently in occur. My wife gets regular and pretty generous bonuses but they aren't factored into our budget because of the nature of her industry and that anything can happen.

If they were previously employed, many just go back to the jobs they had prior to getting arrested, and yes I'm aware that many were not previously employed. You're talking about the Cook County Jail though and not the Illinois Department of Corrections. The people they're letting out either via recognizance bonds or bond reductions (meaning some are still posting) are awaiting trial and haven't been convicted yet. That means a number of people getting out are on lower level felony allegations, especially in terms of property crime, drug use, etc.

As for the judicial system, it's going to be backlogged for ages. There's no way around it, especially since the Illinois Supreme Court has yet to reinstate the speedy trial statute. That means those currently in the jail because they can't post bond are currently not entitled to a trial within 120 days until further order of the Supreme Court.

Update: The Supreme Court actually just put out a new order going into place on June 1. It allows for the local chief judges of the state's circuits to continue jury trials without tolling speedy trial time now if they need to.

That's not how all industries work. Bonuses can be upwards of 100% of base pay for lots of people in financial services. I work in capital markets and the salary is competitive, but everyone is working towards building up the bonus pool which is then distributed among the team at the end of the year. It shouldn't even be called a bonus, which makes it sound like something extraordinary or unexpected. It's a redistribution of earnings which most people will factor into their budgets given that no one goes into the business of just covering their operating costs and not making a profit.

Anyone who works for a partnership, whether it be a law firm, consulting practice, hell even the big four accounting firms, is dramatically affected. Accounting is always touted as the most stable career you can get. These aren't people known for playing fast and loose and living above their means, yet Deloitte and others are laying off thousands.

Yeah, I don't know anyone white collar who isn't affected.

Most people's wealth is in the market and real estate, and both have been hammered.

And even if salary isn't immediately affected, it probably will be shortly. For example, my wife's salary was frozen, and there are already rumblings that next year's bonus season (a very significant portion of her income) will be skipped, which would be unprecedented.

My sister is a dentist and income near zero. My brother-in-law is in commercial RE and income near zero. They have three kids in private school and two fat mortgages.

There are a fair number of jobs where the bonus comprises half or the majority of your pay.

Its partisan because large media helped fan the flames. We were sold a doomsday narrative that did not pan out for 90 percent of the country and apparently the situation in New York was what was going to happen to the rest of us if we didnt lock everything down. No probably not. Really there were two options. Containment or mitigation. I'd posit most policy makers panicked initially and went with the containment strategy. Now well have to live with their choice and see if the economic fallout is worth it. Honestly I think in the end this is going to inadvertently benefit us. Itll shake out some dead weight, usher in new technologies and spread the employment wealth across the region's instead of concentrating it in cbds. We will see a suburban rise and a more egalitarian playing field.

In terms of job losses, it's stark...the vast majority are the service sector. The first link I found says 16 million out of 20 million total losses in March and April.

White collar jobs have big losses, but NOTHING like the same level. And we're much better off to begin with, on average. Anyone with a good income and some intelligence will have several months expenses easily available, outside a minority who ran into huge medical expenses or something. Most of us will do fine even if we're furloughed, which most of us aren't.

As is the case with my wife (slightly less than half her salary) but we would never budget on whatever she gets in bonuses because they fluctuate. Her base pay is is what we base our Household income on in addition to my own.

FYI- Drops in bonus and compensation freezes would be happening regardless of stay-at-home orders.

Maybe you’re not familiar with compensation structures in some industries. What if your annual bonus was 2-4x your base salary?

No one in prime Manhattan or London can afford their mortgage on the basis of their base salary.

Yes, me lol

I am enjoying a little freedom living a life right now in Arkansas that is 99% back to normal as far as I can see. And when I get back to Illinois next week, I will be doing all my shopping in Indiana until Illinois opens up everything.

Side note: I asked my girlfriend's mom and her sister if they have gone out to eat or shop yet. They both said no. Then her mom went on to say that it's because she is waiting until all the "rules" end and things are normal again. I am certain others are doing the same thing. She thought that since restaurants are at 33% capacity limits that they would be slammed, but they aren't. So hopefully when 100% of things go back to "normal" the economy will really pick up.

Won't someone think of the poor ol' millionaires? :(