Thirty two million plus on some sort of unemployment, and probably another 10-15 million (we will never know for sure) that have lost work but have been rejected for unemployment for whatever reason, I know here in Florida MANY legitimate covered people have been denied. In many cases the employer cannot be reached, and even though the employee was covered if they can't contact the employers TFB, go get a job you lazy bum.
On the other hand: The rationale provided by Deere is flimsy. The real issue is that many people make more being unemployed on Covid stimulus than they did working.
Thursday my garage door decided it was a great day to give up the ghost. I just got home from Home Depot and the garage would not open, I went to Walmart and bought 9 volt batteries because I thought it was a dead remote. New battery made no difference so I used the key to go in through the front door. Pushed the button on the garage wall nothing happened. So back to Home Depot to get a new garage door opener, because I called around and a repairman with garage door companies all said it would be weeks. Why? No workers. So I bought a new opener and went to get a handyman to install it. Nope, no workers doing this now.
FUCK! Nobody wants to work, they make more on their UI than working, and some are making less, but still using UI as vacation pay because they otherwise have no benefits and no vacation time.
So I have this garage door opener sitiing in my garage and no way to install it. All I really lack is a ladder. But I can't buy a ladder and transport it in my BMW. Delivery costs twice as much as the ladder does.
So, yesterday I decided to open the pool filter, clean the cartridge, and get it working right again, something I put this off because I knew how neglected it had been and it was going to be a major job. Sure enough, the drain plug was stuck as if it had been welded. I am out there for hours trying to work it lose and zip, in 95* heat with Florida humidity, heat index 109* and OMG was it a pain in the ass. The drain plug finally collapsed and broke without ever moving a single atom. Well, once broken you can move on and it took all my strength and another hour to get the top half of the assembly off the bottom and I am sweating the thought the O ring will be ruined.
Got it off eventually and went to hose out the filter cartridge, it had YEARS of crap in it. Dog hair alone. It must have been 3 or 4 years since it was serviced. But, once clean all I had to do was get that old drain plug out and put it all back together.
Nope. The drain plug was two inches from the wall and I could not get at it to drill out what remained to put in the new plug. So I had to remove the bottom assembly from the top, thus the need for the wrench. Even with a borrowed rwrench I could not budge the couplings, so the plumbing pipes have to be cut and my frustration level is through the roof, I just wanted to clean the goddamned filter because nobody had done it in years. I ended up buying a whole new flilter system at Pench a Penny for almost 600 bucks, but can find no installers that can do it before mid week next week. By which time the pool will be green. WHY? Because so many are taking a well needed vacation. Those that are left working are like the Shirk Brothers from the movie The Money Pit. Show up in a limo and demand 35 year old bourbon, then say it is going to be three prices and will take months to do. And I am Tom Hanks wondering how to pay for it.
So I now have a pool filtration system sitting in the garage and no way to install it.
So, I am on the way to Home Depot around 230 today to buy my own tools to get those stuck couplings to move, or PVC parts and pipe dope to install the new filter unit which I really did not have to spend the money on othere than the fact that I can't hire someone to come fix the old unit, and a thunderstorm blew up a few miles from the house and I had the top down on the old BMW so I ducked into the Walmart parking lot to stop and put the top up. Viola, halfway up it quit. You can't drive the car with the top stuck in the halfway position, so I had to call roadside assistance to have the car taken to BMW of Ocala, the nearest dealership. But by the time the truck arrived it was less than a half hour till BMW closed till Monday so we had to take the car to my house till next week. BMW actaull said I should take the car there and drop it off in the covered area outside the service bay, with the top halfway open. Right, I am leaving my BMW open all weekend in Ocala while I am stuck at home without even a rental car.
So the guy goes to put the car on the tow truck flat bed and says he needs my towing eye hook that screws into the bumper for towing. Of course it is in the trunk which will not open while the top is in the halfway position. It took a while but he agreed to take it to my house without the hook.
BMW told me that they have a staff of ten techs normally but due to Covid six are off collecting unemployment. They are weeks behind. The manager told me that cars have been there for more than a week that have still not been seen. And GEICO says my roadside assistance only covers 20 miles, it is 43 to the dealership.
Meaning I am going to have to pay about $250 to get the car to BMW on Monday morning where I will leave my car till who knows when and rent a car till it is right.
I will have no choice but to use my emergency high interest card to pay for it.
But there was a bright spot, the guy Mike is his name, called, I had emailed him from his Craigslist ad about handyman who could help me repair the rotting beams holding up the roof, he was sorry he had not got back to me sooner but he and his wife had been stuck in some airport waiting. They had been on vacation and just got back, but because of the car breaking down I could not see him today. He will be here Monday to look at the house and give an estimate that I just cannot pay.
The world has not stopped for Covid. When everyone was working there was work to go around. Now, it is all a mess. Some have 10% of the business they had this time last year and expect those who call now to pay a much higher price so they can stay in business. And if 90% of us can't or won't pay the new prices they still have plenty of work from people who will because they have no choice.
I could get all these things done today by simply saying there is a bonus in it for you, a few hundred tip. A thousand, a few thousand. There are 10% of the population that can and do pay it. All I have to do is win the Powerball tonight.
So, if you stuck with me this far I want to say that those who had regular jobs and got laid off because the business they worked for closed, or curtailed to 10% staff or whatever, yes, cover them and give them NORMAL unemployment, because unemployment is unemployment, they do not need an extra $600 per week because the reason is Covid. You understand that there are people in Massachusetts collecting over $100,000.00 per year on unemployment right?
Even in Kentucky they max out at almost $60 thousand per year and you think that is not a motive to stay home and not work? I wish I made that much. I am a 100% disabled veteran and the government has paid me $720 per week because that is all you need to live on and many in congress would slash that. Yet a Covid unemployed person gets $600 on top of state UI and other benefits equal to or greater than the benefits they got working. And the democrats want to basically make that open ended.
I want fairness. The Fed and federal government have given well north of $6 trillion to business, while that $1,200 stimulus check amounted to well under $300 billion.
It is the GFC all over again where all stimulus was channeled to Wall Street and which made our top 10% so much wealthier than they ever were, while 5 million people lost homes and credit. This is the GFC at warp speed and ten times the inequality.
People like me with no stimulus and no capacity to increase income are just flat out fucked, I will be homeless before this year is over because all the low interest largess will not filter down this far, we can't have moral hazard entering the economy can we? When I saw that $600 per week ($31,200 per year) on top of UI state compensation I nearly shit. Most of the people collecting UI were not making that much to start with. And if they were why does the government think your disabled vets can get by on less?
So not flimsy at all. There are tens of millions that would gladly go back to work and be grateful for any job if that $600 went away.
Stuff does not stop rotting, hair does not stop growing, things still get obsolete on a daily basis, fires happen, storms happen, accidents happen, it takes all of us to keep this running, you can't just take six months off because of Covid or anything else. As an older person at threat to dying because of the virus YOU and the government could have bought or hired limos to deliver food to me so those at real risk would not starve and it would have cost less than a single digit of what they have handed Wall Street for all this.