US Politics : Biden 100 days edition

[scudsucker]

I've read the Dems want to make the additional unemployment benefit

Sorry to question your research on this, but I have read that families of bears that live in the woods eat porridge and speak English to one another.

Perhaps you could provide a cite?

 

[Temujin]

Sorry to question your research on this, but I have read that families of bears that live in the woods eat porridge and speak English to one another.

Perhaps you could provide a cite?

This was news a few weeks back, they want it permanent as part of infrastructure plan(I'm assuming thats what TRHB was talking about)

38 Democrats Ask Biden To Make More Generous Unemployment Benefits Permanent In His Infrastructure Plan

The lawmakers want to expand eligibility, establish automatic triggers and create a federal standard for states to follow.

www.forbes.com

WSJ News Exclusive | Some Democrats Push for Permanent Expansion of Unemployment Benefits

Democrats on Capitol Hill are pushing the White House to propose more generous and long-lasting jobless benefits on a permanent basis as part of the antipoverty package President Biden is expected to roll out next week.

www.wsj.com

 

[AlmightyBender]

This was news a few weeks back, they want it permanent as part of infrastructure plan(I'm assuming thats what TRHB was talking about)

38 Democrats Ask Biden To Make More Generous Unemployment Benefits Permanent In His Infrastructure Plan

The lawmakers want to expand eligibility, establish automatic triggers and create a federal standard for states to follow.

www.forbes.com

WSJ News Exclusive | Some Democrats Push for Permanent Expansion of Unemployment Benefits

Democrats on Capitol Hill are pushing the White House to propose more generous and long-lasting jobless benefits on a permanent basis as part of the antipoverty package President Biden is expected to roll out next week.

www.wsj.com

Fascinating how it was framed as "the Dems" wanting this to be made permanent but it turns out only a fraction of "the Dems" want this. I.e. it will never happen in reality but you guys don't let that inconvenient fact get in the way of your outrage.

I wish I had the ability to live in a fantasy like you guys. Seems so simple and nice.

 

[DA-LION-619]

But are they are doing it. Automation doesn't just happen overnight - it's a gradual, step-by-step process. It's happening as we speak.

Before or after working ice cream machines?

 

[OrbitalDawn]

Do you have a link for this? All links I have read point that 'Biovac were contracted to store & distribute AZ vaccine' and nowhere where they have 'produced' 1 million covid vaccines.

I am not doubting that they have capability. I really doubt if they have produced AZ yet but I am happy to be corrected if a source is pointed out.

In below link CEO corrects Bongani that they produce 80% of paediatric vaccine and not covid vaccine.

Biovac has capacity to produce 20mln COVID vaccines per year, says CEO

For South Africa to manufacture a COVID-19 vaccine here on home soil, it would need to be processed on a much larger scale and Biovac said it was not able to meet such demand.

ewn.co.za

SA’s Biovac says it can make 30 million doses of Covid vaccine | News24

The company, part-owned by government, said it is talking to global pharmaceutical companies to manufacture their vaccines in the country.

www.businessinsider.co.za

Hmm, it seems a bit muddy, but I think you're right, it's probably referring to them being used as a distribution hub of sorts for the AZ vaccine at this stage.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

Counterpoint: Read the law President Alzheimers is supporting:

https://docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages/SS/directdoc.aspx?filename=q:/IP/C/W669.pdf&Open=True

That's not a law, it's a WTO recommendation from October last year...

The 'law' (actually a legal agreement that all 164 WTO members are subject to) in question is the TRIPS Agreement, which has been in effect since 1994.

Didn't want to do the bare minimum research? Taking a page out of Chris' book.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

Weird then how the tech industry is booming in Texas:

Austin has attracted the likes of Oracle, Palantir, and SpaceX, among others. Here's what it's like inside Texas's growing tech hub.

Elon Musk has a Tesla Cybertruck factory under construction outside of Austin, and his Boring Company recently bought an industrial site nearby.

www.businessinsider.com

View attachment 1064271

What's weird about that? Tech growth is 'booming' all over.

You know who else is having a tech boom? California.

Silicon Valley is not suffering a tech exodus, and money is flowing in at record rate --- for a fortunate few

Despite reports of an exodus, Silicon Valley remains the tech capital of the world, with new data showing continued record investment in the industry in 2020...

www.marketwatch.com

Despite reports of an exodus, Silicon Valley remains the tech capital of the world, with new data showing continued record investment in the industry in 2020 and no overall declines in jobs and population in the region.

Silicon Valley and San Francisco companies’ market capitalization climbed 37% to $10.5 trillion last year, according to the report, thanks to huge spikes from companies such as Tesla Inc. TSLA, +1.33%, which saw its market cap skyrocket more than 700% in 2020; Apple Inc. AAPL, +0.53%, which saw a 77% increase, while Facebook Inc. FB, -0.29% grew 30% and Google GOOGL, +0.62% experienced a 28% boost.

Big Tech kept getting bigger in other ways as well. The top 15 tech employers in the area — which includes the above plus other large companies like Intel Corp. INTC, +0.84%, Salesforce Inc. CRM, -0.71% and Cisco Systems Inc. CSCO, +1.89% — ended the year with a 3.7% increase in jobs

It was also a record year for venture capital, with funding to Silicon Valley and San Francisco companies increasing 8% from 2019, the report said. Of the $123.6 billion in U.S. VC funding in 2020, $26.4 billion went to Silicon Valley, $20 billion to San Francisco and $67 billion to California.

Sounds like California is an expensive place to live where the lower income jobs are struggling so they leave?

Yep. They have very stupid housing policy, much like New York.

 

[The_Right_Honourable_Brit]

Fascinating how it was framed as "the Dems" wanting this to be made permanent but it turns out only a fraction of "the Dems" want this. I.e. it will never happen in reality but you guys don't let that inconvenient fact get in the way of your outrage.

I wish I had the ability to live in a fantasy like you guys. Seems so simple and nice.

Wait, so we need to count the number of Dems who support a piece of legislation? Christ dude, 99 percent of people on this forum aren't students, trust fund kids who don't need to work or retired. We have actual day jobs and post on this forum whenever there is a break or just being lazy. Do you know how freakin' long that would take?! I do hope you take a leaf out of your own book and do the count when you say "Republicans support X"....

 

[OrbitalDawn]

Kind of makes the case for raising the pathetic US minimum wage, ne?

Or these whining clowns can try raising their wages instead of grouching that people won't work for poverty wages.

If you can't find workers, raise your wages to be a competitive employer.

 

[cerebus]

Wait, so we need to count the number of Dems who support a piece of legislation? Christ dude, 99 percent of people on this forum aren't students, trust fund kids who don't need to work or retired. We have actual day jobs and post on this forum whenever there is a break or just being lazy. Do you know how freakin' long that would take?! I do hope you take a leaf out of your own book and do the count when you say "Republicans support X"....

It does matter if it's the majority Democratic view or a small minority.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

I will get back to you on that (will find article tomorrow) but my Wall Street Journal article had employers in hospitality complaining about not finding any workers because no-one could be bothered to apply despite the unemployment rate creeping up (the article framed the issue as supply rather than demand which is what I'm angling at as well).

Sorry your ideology (provide conveniently by the WSJ editorial board) isn't reality, Chris.

Did the $600 Unemployment Supplement Discourage Work?

People receiving unemployment insurance benefits during the COVID-19 recession were entitled to $600 of additional payments per week through July. This large increase in benefit payments raised a concern that recipients would delay returning to work. However, analysis suggests that the available...

www.frbsf.org

With these considerations in mind, we assess the impact of the $600 supplement on job search. We find little to no disincentive effect from the higher benefits in the data. Our findings emphasize that UI benefits instead served as an important source of economic relief and stimulus.

How Do Unemployment Benefits Relate to Job Search Behavior? - Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

www.chicagofed.org

A study published in June by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago found that “those currently receiving UI benefits search intensely for new work” at a level that seems “somewhat greater than that of the unemployed not receiving benefits.”

Column: Employers say lavish unemployment checks make it hard to hire workers. Don't believe it

Restaurants say people are refusing to work because unemployment benefits are so good. You should be skeptical.

www.latimes.com

The $600 weekly benefit enacted last year under the CARES Act, however, was historically generous. Wouldn’t that make a difference?

Not according to Arindrajit Dube of the University of Massachusetts, who could find no evidence that the end of the $600 benefit boost led to any differences in employment recovery between states with generous benefits and those with less-generous benefits.

The result prompted Dube to conclude that “the unprecedentedly generous UI benefit levels during the COVID crisis did not have any substantially negative effect on jobs.”

 

[OrbitalDawn]

AP-NORC poll: Biden approval buoyed by his pandemic response

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is plunging into the next phase of his administration with the steady approval of a majority of Americans, according to a new poll from <a href="https://apnorc...

apnews.com

In the fourth month of his presidency, Biden’s overall approval rating sits at 63%. When it comes to the new Democratic president’s handling of the pandemic, 71% of Americans approve, including 47% of Republicans.

The AP-NORC poll also shows an uptick in Americans’ overall optimism about the state of the country. Fifty-four percent say the country is on the right track, higher than at any point in AP-NORC polls conducted since 2017

 

[greg0205]

AP-NORC poll: Biden approval buoyed by his pandemic response

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is plunging into the next phase of his administration with the steady approval of a majority of Americans, according to a new poll from <a href="https://apnorc...

apnews.com

Making life difficult for Rasmussen.

 

[The_Right_Honourable_Brit]

Dear @OrbitalDawn

Even the US president is concerned...

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1391817321241620486

Mr. Biden also said his administration would make clear that any worker who turns down a suitable job offer, with rare exceptions for health fears related to the virus, would lose access to unemployment benefits. To ensure those rules are being followed, the Labor Department will work with states to reinstate work search requirements. Those rules, which require that anyone collecting unemployment benefits provide proof that they are actively searching for work, were suspended during the pandemic.

@cerebus will like this. Let's see if the people on the couch will be arsed to get off it!

Hoping to attract more employees, the fast-food chain Chipotle said on Monday it was increasing its wages to an average of $15 an hour by the end of June.

The company, which is looking to hire 20,000 employees for its peak season and to staff the more than 200 restaurants it plans to open this year, said the wage increase would result in hourly workers making between $11 and $18 an hour.

Chipotle is the latest restaurant chain to raise wages or offer incentives as it struggles to staff its restaurants. As coronavirus vaccinations have increased and government restrictions eased, the restaurant industry, which laid off or furloughed millions of employees during the pandemic, suddenly went on a hiring spree, as did several other service-related industries.

That sudden high demand for restaurant workers has been tough to meet. Some potential employees, whether concerned about the safety of serving customers dining indoors or buoyed by government stimulus checks, are wary of returning to work.

The April jobs report released last week showed a significant jump in the number of workers hired in the restaurant and bar sector, but employment levels at full-service restaurants in February remain 20 percent lower than a year ago, according to the National Restaurant Association. That’s the equivalent of 1.1 million jobs. Employment at fast-food and fast-casual restaurants was down 6 percent over the same period.

Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour has been one of the items on the agenda of President Biden. An attempt to add the provision to the pandemic relief bill signed in March failed after Congress removed it from the package.

At the time, the restaurant industry had argued that a wage increase would imperil the recovery for the industry because it would result in higher prices and mean not as many workers could be hired.

Now, struggling to attract candidates, Chipotle is not only raising its hourly wages, it is offering referral bonuses for crew members and managers.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

Dear @OrbitalDawn

Even the US president is concerned...

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1391817321241620486

So no comment on what the research on this says? Just pure ideology for you, eh?

 

[The_Right_Honourable_Brit]

So no comment on what the research on this says? Just pure ideology for you, eh?

I prefer the experiences of people actually making the hiring decisions than researchers using massive datasets and then imposing their explanation (s) from their analysis -- remember their conclusions are based on the results they get...perhaps they are using bad data or applying incorrect economic models?

It just doesn't chime with me that unemployment is still about 2.5 percentage points higher than Trump's lowest unemployment rate (3.5 percent) and yet businesses are reporting that they are struggling to find staff. There must be something going on. When unemployment is high-ish, people should be desperate to get any job offered to them!

Let's remember it was forecast that 1 million jobs would be created in April. Official numbers were barely over 20 percent of that. Atrocious!

 

[buka001]

I prefer the experiences of people actually making the hiring decisions than researchers using massive datasets and then imposing their explanation (s) from their analysis -- remember their conclusions are based on the results they get...perhaps they are using bad data or applying incorrect economic models?

It just doesn't chime with me that unemployment is still about 2.5 percentage points higher than Trump's lowest unemployment rate (3.5 percent) and yet businesses are reporting that they are struggling to find staff. There must be something going on. When unemployment is high-ish, people should be desperate to get any job offered to them!

Let's remember it was forecast that 1 million jobs would be created in April. Official numbers were barely over 20 percent of that. Atrocious!

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1391576980445831169

 

[OrbitalDawn]

Can't be. Dems bankrupted the state.

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

www.bloomberg.com

California’s operating budget surplus has swelled to more than $75 billion, Governor Gavin Newsom said, fueled by a surging economy and capital-gains taxes.

The surplus will leave Newsom and lawmakers with $38 billion extra to spend as they see fit, since some of the surplus is already earmarked. The state expects to get $26 billion from President Joe Biden’s stimulus package.

“California is going to come roaring back,” Newsom said at a press conference.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

I prefer the experiences of people actually making the hiring decisions than researchers using massive datasets and then imposing their explanation (s) from their analysis -- remember their conclusions are based on the results they get...perhaps they are using bad data or applying incorrect economic models?

Feels over reals then. Okay.

It just doesn't chime with me that unemployment is still about 2.5 percentage points higher than Trump's lowest unemployment rate (3.5 percent) and yet businesses are reporting that they are struggling to find staff. There must be something going on. When unemployment is high-ish, people should be desperate to get any job offered to them!

Or, people have a bit more leeway to not accept poverty wages and poor working conditions. The obvious solution is to... raise wages to make themselves attractive employers.

The businesses that are doing it are getting staff.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

@The_Right_Honourable_Brit - the guy you lauded yesterday is getting ready to embrace the requisite Big Lie mantra.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1391820551434473473