Liberals have funny ideas about the economy. They want to encourage people to be unemployed and then they're shocked about the amount of people who are unemployed.

A fair an unbiased take

Hmmmm, not sure I get this.

What part don't you get?

Encourage people to be unemployed?

Well when you pay people more to be unemployed than working then yes.

What exactly don't you get?

Got it, the previous stimulus bill. I thought you were talking on a macro level.

Hertz was going to go bankrupt eventually, the coronavirus just accelerated it. As I said, the company is massively in debt and has been losing money for some time. All this despite a booming economy the past few years. Their debt rating was junk and there is only so long you can go borrowing money at continuing higher rates while losing money every year.

As for "predicting it", Avis and Enterprise will be fine. They didn't decide to gut the company over the past decade and actually built businesses built to succeed in the long term. Hertz was just a company that some private equity tools gutted for their own profit.

I am sure people are really turning down good jobs to stay on temporary unemployment that is below the poverty line for a family of four and pay massive health insurance premiums.

What companies are struggling to find people willing to work for them? All the job sites are stating there has been an enormous uptick in job seekers.This is some garbage right-wing talking point by people who get infuriated when struggling people get tossed a lifeline. Seems to always get mixed in when passionately defending some billionaire who made poor business decisions.

I know my company is trying to hire employees.

But it can't afford to pay what unemployment is paying, which is more than what the median worker in the country is making.

BTW I don't work for some fortune 500 business. I work for a small time business in Ohio.

Bold prediction about Avis and Enterprise. Not sure what your definition of "fine" is but I predict they will continue to struggle for the foreseeable future. We shall see.

If a company offering a stable job can't afford to compete with a few months of unemployment benefits with no health insurance, perhaps they aren't paying enough and need to re-think their business model.

What is this job paying that people are turning down?

Less than what people would get by not working, which is the problem.

Short term sure, everyone is. Long term they just knocked out one of their biggest competitors. Their stock price is up a good deal since.

Hertz financed vehicles by using its existing vehicles as collateral. They then made the incredibly short-sighted decision to set it up so that any drop in the used car market (which decreases their collateral) would have to be made up in cash payments. When they were given the chance to fix this in March, they said no and made a statement about how they didn't think this would be a big deal.

Avis structure debt like that and thus wasn't stuck with creditors demanding a cash payment. Smart company stays in business and takes market share from the dumb company.

Seems like the company needs to pay more. Companies aren't owed cheap labor.

Remind me, which Fortune 500 company do you run?

Sorry man, if your company can't compete with a few months of unemployment that also requires a huge health insurance premium, your offer sucks. No shortage of people looking for long term stable jobs out there. Sites like Indeed are bursting with new applicants.

I also do own a company and understand that if people don't want to work for what I'm offering, I need to pay more.

Remind me, which Fortune 500 company do you run?

Do you have to run a Fortune 500 company to understand how supply and demand works?

Remind me, which Fortune 500 company do you run?

I mean, you seem to be an expert and all.

This is high school level economics. You don't need to run a Fortune 500 company to understand it.

Remind me, which Fortune 500 company do you run?

I can't speak for anywhere else, but in Portland there is a significant gap between the average wage and the average cost-of-living. The unemployment boost potentially providing a relatively short disruption for folks at the bottom of the scale & a re-evaluation of a living wage, might not necessarily be a bad thing in that regard.

....I mean, I certainly wouldn't bet any of my own money on everything shaking out in favor of the individual/worker in this environment, but it's a nice thought.

I probably should just leave this alone, but...

I can't throw a football worth crap but I'm pretty sure Patrick Mahomes is good and Mitch Trubisky isn't.

SI

And I can throw a Football and you sir are spot on

Come on guys the Trubisky stuff is a sore spot here.

Sorry, I haven't been around in 5 years so I didn't know that one.

SI

What part of Rainmakers comment isnt true?

Part of a solid business model is being able to afford the help you need to be profitable.


Verizon has been paying their employees for the past 3 months despite have numerous people working from home or not working. They have been great throughout this. I am not sure what other Fortune 500 companies are doing but Id imagine mostly doing the same trying to help keep the economy afloat.

I can see why people have checked out of this forum. I think things are going to really head south in these threads and so little good comes (mentally) from sticking around in them. I assume this is why these threads have about 20 unique posters throughout the 100 plus page threads. Peace out.

Futures up +518 right now on "recovery hopes & vaccine news".

High was about 29,500 in mid-Feb, we are at about 24,500 so a drop of -17% from the high.

My very small Robinhood portfolio I started in January is fully recovered.

Still not getting it. I invest in 2 Baillie Gifford funds, American and Global Discovery. Both have recorded large gains. Wierd. Seriously thinking about cutting and running and putting it in cash now.

In case there was any question about who the Fed's purchases benefit. Asset owners.

The premium/discount that corporate bond ETF $LQD has been trading relative to its NAV.

Buyers clearly rushing to front-run BlackRock after the Fed announced on 3/23 ETFs would be purchased pic.twitter.com/00ahNM5fTD

— Andrew W. Park (@apark_) May 27, 2020

The resulting inflation is what stealing money from the middle class looks like. As will the decimation of any small or middle company, just to keep the largest afloat.

So these companies continue to fatten up to the tune of TRILLIONS rather than pay better wages and, will, inevitably, shed salary and jobs due to a lack of competition. But, hey, let's get mad about that your neighbor might make $300 more than he was making in his minimum wage job for the next couple of months.

SI

I really don't get the criticisms on the Fed. The Fed is doing what they think is best to stabilize the economy (markets, businesses, consumer sentiment etc.).

Just like in the GR, there will be accusations that the Fed wasn't fair, even-handed etc. Just like in the GR there will definitely be unintended consequences (how could there not be?).

Does that really matter in the big picture? The only thing that matters is the Fed does its part in stabilizing the economy, keeping the recession relatively short, and preventing such a loss of confidence that we go into a Great Depression, stagflation etc.

Let's have the politicians figure out everything else out.

39 million people are out of work. Wouldn't consider that a stable economy. But some rich people stay rich because the Fed is in the ETF biz now.

Definitely Great Depression unemployment nos. Nevertheless the economy is not in a Great Depression ... yet, and let's have the Fed focus on *that* priority first. Everything else should be secondary to the Fed until a later time.

In the initial stages of the GR, there was great uncertainty about how much worse it could get, what other big companies could fail, would credit freeze up etc. There was a lot of criticism of the Fed & Treasury back then. They both worked together and got us out of it, and set the foundation for 10 years of nice growth.

Re: the inequities that exist, the politicians deserve more of your blame than the Fed.

I am sure there are ways to help the economy that aren't "give billionaires a few trillion in handouts".

I would like a link to that to make sure I understand the accusation and its not fake news taken out of context.

But in the meantime I'll put my trust in the Fed team (and Treasury) to help stabilize this situation for now.

Straight from the Fed's mouth.

Federal Reserve Board - Federal Reserve announces extensive new measures to support the economy

You can find their balance sheet somewhere on the site to confirm.

Yes, I remember this post.

Your article points out the Fed measures supports consumers, businesses & markets. Your statement lacks the additional context and seems to say the Fed is only concerned about billionaires.

Who do you think benefits from the purchasing of corporate debt from large companies owned by billionaires?

Hiw the fuck is this possible as the economy craters and millions are out of work?

Error Page

You posted 2 articles on this recently.

Neither (I don't think) supports your claims of "give billionaires a few trillion in handouts" and think its a significant exaggeration. If you think otherwise, feel free to highlight the relevant passages.

Regardless of what I believe to be an misleading statement, it is true there is some level of "bailout" going on. Purchasing corporate debt doesn't mean the money is given for free, it means its a debt (e.g. bonds). The government isn't losing money on this.

One can look at it as

1) Government providing loans to corporations that billionaires have a significant stake in and therefore bailing them out. I think this is your take

or

2) Government providing loans to corporations, consumers, small businesses so they can continue operating (albeit some don't deserve to survive) and buffering up consumer sentiment/confidence to prevent a tailspin into a Great Depression like event

Both are not mutually exclusive and I am sure we will find Fed will have made mistakes when there is a post-mortem 5 years from now (with that 100% hindsight). Nevertheless, I'll state again my position

Quote:

Definitely Great Depression unemployment nos. Nevertheless the economy is not in a Great Depression ... yet, and let's have the Fed focus on *that* priority first. Everything else should be secondary to the Fed until a later time.

I think your beef is with politicians and the inequities you believe currently exists. I don't think the Fed should be blamed for doing what it thinks needs to be done for this specific event. I will fault the Fed if the economy is not on a path to recovery in 6-12 months time.

I literally posted the statement from the Federal Reserve on what they are doing. If you don't understand it or believe it is some clever fake, I don't know what to tell you.

Large corporations have taken on massive debt over the years. Often times to buyback their own stock. This poor decision made them vulnerable during an economic downturn.

The Fed decided they would buy up corporate debt. Both investor grade and junk. Essentially letting investors off the hook for their bad investments and allowing businesses to borrow even more money since the Fed is acting as a guarantee on these loans. It is a bailout and moral hazard.

It is a bailout. Just like the many other things they have been doing. The fact now over 40 million people are out of work and the markets are going up should be a pretty good sign that something else is happening.

There are tons of articles you can Google on what they are doing or just read the Fed's site where they tell you what they are doing.

I saw the links, I read the links. I didn't see anything about "give billionaires a few trillion in handouts". Admittedly I may be wrong or I'm taking it too literally (e.g. trillions) when you are exaggerating to make a point ... but go ahead and paste the relevant passages.

I am not exaggerating. It is on the Fed balance sheet.

Federal Reserve Board - Recent balance sheet trends

The graph shown lists the increase as "Securities Held Outright" which to me is pretty vague. Maybe you know more about financial terminology than I do.

But for all I know the money could've been used to pay for the CARES act and other stimulus measures recently enacted.

I don't see how it proves the "trillions in corporate giveaway" theory.

I can actually believe trillions in corporate loans/debt relief (e.g. they will pay back or owe, its not a "giveaway"). Its a large jump to "give billionaires a few trillion in handouts" and certainly don't see this in his 2 links.