I disagree with this decision. It is long overdue to stop eviction moratoriums, which are abusive to landlords, in the current economy with many available jobs. The people not paying rent at this point -- are for the most part -- just deliberately abusing the system. In the early days of COVID, the eviction moratorium made sense to avoid having additional homeless people who lost jobs from wandering the streets when COVID restrictions were in place. But now with readily available vaccinations and plentiful jobs -- it no longer makes sense. Extending it for a month merely allows another month of abuse. CDC extends eviction moratorium a month, says it's last time https://www.wral.com/biden-administration-extends-eviction-moratorium-for-30-days/19741182/ The Biden administration has extended the nationwide ban on evictions for a month to help tenants who are unable to make rent payments during the coronavirus pandemic, but it said this is expected to be the last time it does so. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, extended the evictions moratorium from June 30 until July 31. The CDC said Thursday that “this is intended to be the final extension of the moratorium.” The White House had acknowledged Wednesday that the emergency pandemic protection, which had been extended before, would have to end at some point. The trick is devising the right sort of off-ramp to make the transition without massive social upheaval. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the separate bans on evictions for renters and mortgage holders were “always intended to be temporary.” This week, dozens of members of Congress wrote to President Joe Biden and Walensky calling for the moratorium to be not only extended but also strengthened in some ways. The letter, spearheaded by Democratic Reps. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Jimmy Gomez of California and Cori Bush of Missouri, called for an unspecified extension in order to allow the nearly $47 billion in emergency rental assistance included in the American Rescue Plan to get into the hands of tenants. Ending the assistance too abruptly, they said, would disproportionately hurt some of the same minority communities that were hit so hard by the virus itself. They also echoed many housing advocates by calling for the moratorium’s protections to be made automatic, requiring no special steps from the tenant in order to gain its protections. “The impact of the federal moratorium cannot be understated, and the need to strengthen and extend it is an urgent matter of health, racial, and economic justice,” the letter said. Diane Yentel, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, called an extension of the eviction ban “the right thing to do — morally, fiscally, politically, and as a continued public health measure.” But landlords, who have opposed the moratorium and challenged it in court, are against any extension. They have argued the focus should be on speeding up the distribution of rental assistance.
I for one, cheer the little guy gaming the system that has favored the top earners during this pandemic (2020 COVID bailouts, 2017 tax cuts).
Life after the 1918 flu has lessons for our post-pandemic world https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/28/health/changes-after-covid-pandemic-1918-flu-wellness-scn/index.html
Data: States with tighter lockdowns had strong economies and fewer deaths https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/d...-strong-economies-and-fewer-deaths/ar-AALlzOG Just as there’s a lot of sketchy anti-vaxxer propaganda, there are also plenty of flawed attacks upon COVID-19 lockdowns. But just as lockdowns curbed skyrocketing death rates, new economic data reveals many states that implemented such measures also did a better job of rescuing their economies as well. Analyze the death rate in the states listed among the worst, such as New York and New Jersey, and you’ll see fatalities plunge after the lockdowns began in those states. These states also had lower levels of the second wave of deaths — those the occurred between October 2020 and January 2021 — than the initial waves. Compare those outcomes to cases of states with looser restrictions where death rates in the second wave were higher than the first wave. These states include Texas, Florida and Georgia. Florida not only eschewed such health measures but also worked to block local governments from passing mask mandates or social distancing requirements. It was done under the auspices of helping businesses — many of the same businesses Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is now punishing for wanting to require vaccination for services. This a clear swipe at the freedom of business to conduct its own business. Policies like DeSantis’ may not be even helping businesses. UCLA economists, using the same Oxford University data on NPIs (nonpharmaceutical interventions) that conservative studies tout, made a new finding: “Not only did big states with more stringent COVID measures end 2020 with fewer infections per capita, they also tended to post better economic growth numbers last year than states with fewer restrictions. In other words, California’s economy actually fared better than Florida’s.” Their study compares apples with apples, and not California with tiny economies like South Dakota. “The states that were considered for this analysis are basically the states that produce most of the U.S. GDP — states with a population of 5 million or greater. We found two things. First, California had more stringent interventions and a lower infection rate than either Texas or Florida, two states to which it’s often compared. Yet California also performed better with respect to GDP than either Texas or Florida. Second, the same pattern showed up across all big states: On average, the ones with more stringent interventions had both better health outcomes and better economic outcomes.” Internationally, there’s no bigger poster child for flawed policy than Sweden, which attempted herd immunity without a vaccine. “More than a year later, statistics indicate that the country remains very far from achieving herd immunity, despite having one of the highest numbers of positive cases relative to its population in the world. Clearly, community infection does not work,” stated Asia Analytica, a Hong Kong-based analysis firm. “That only results in higher case numbers and a greater death toll, and prolonged economic hardship. The only way to achieve community immunity — and therefore, a return to our way of life — is through rapid mass vaccination.” The evidence shows that developing a healthier, more prudent, less deadly environment was more important for economic growth than having governments block attempts to create a safer business climate.
IMO 6% of people who would quit outright is not very high -- which is good news for businesses that want to bring people back into the office. The majority of people are willing to go back to the office -- especially at businesses requiring everyone be vaccinated. "The majority would be happy to comply, with 57.8% of respondents saying they would return to their desks." Just over 6% of workers say they would quit their jobs if told to go back to the office 5 days a week https://www.businessinsider.com/workers-would-quit-asked-to-return-to-office 6.4% of US workers said they would leave their jobs without a backup if they were asked to return to the office 5 days a week. The Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes collects monthly data on remote work. Half would return without complaint, while 35% said they would return to work, but look elsewhere. (More at above url)
anchoring people's health insurance to their employment status is one of the worst things that's ever happened to this country.
Plenty of other office jobs offering the same health insurance. Health insurance is not a factor in quitting your job if you have to come back to the office five days per week.
Warning signs for global recovery as Delta dims outlook https://www.reuters.com/business/global-markets-outlook-corrected-pix-2021-07-21/ A drubbing in world equity markets and a huge flight to safety into U.S. Treasuries this week suggests investors now doubt that a much-anticipated return to post-COVID normality is feasible any time soon. Data from the United States and China, which account for more than half of world growth, suggests a slowdown in the recent blistering pace of the global economy alongside rising prices for all manner of goods and raw materials. Coinciding with a resurgence in the Delta variant of COVID-19, markets may be sending alarm signals about the global economic outlook, Deutsche Bank chief FX strategist George Saravelos told clients. "As prices have risen, the consumer has been cutting back demand rather than bringing forward consumption. This is the opposite of what one would expect if the environment was genuinely inflationary and it shows the global economy has a very low speed limit," Saravelos wrote. That sentiment was evident in the latest flow data too. Bank of America Merill Lynch flagged "stagflation" concerns for the second half of 2021, noting slowing inflows into stocks and outflows from high-yield assets. 1/ DOLLAR REFUGE Data on hedge funds' weekly currency positioning is the closest available real-time indicator of investors' thinking about the $6.6 trillion a day foreign exchange markets. With the dollar at its highest since end-March, latest Commodity Futures Trading Commission data shows net long positions on the dollar against a basket of major currencies is the biggest since March 2020. Positioning had dropped to a net short bet as recently as early June. Dollar appreciation against the euro and emerging market currencies is unsurprising given economic uncertainty, said Ludovic Colin, senior portfolio manager at Vontobel Asset Management. "Whenever Americans get worried about growth at home or globally, they repatriate money and buy dollars," he added. 2/LESS VALUE In recent months, investors optimistic about an economic recovery sent a flood of cash into so-called cyclical sectors such as banks, leisure and energy. These are, in short, companies that benefit from an economic recovery. The tide may now be going out. Instead "growth" stocks, especially technology, has outperformed its value counterparts by more than 3 percentage points since the start of July. Many clients of Goldman Sachs believe the cyclical rotation was a short-lived phenomenon driven by recovery from an unusual recession, the bank said. Defensive stocks such as utilities are back in favour too. A basket of value stocks compiled by MSCI is testing its lowest levels for this year against defensive peers, having risen 11% in the first six months of 2021. 3/ FALLING YIELDS Early this year, the dollar's trajectory was determined by the interest rate differentials enjoyed by U.S. debt over its rivals, with correlations peaking in May. While real or inflation-adjusted U.S. yields are still higher than their German counterparts, the drop in nominal U.S. yields below 1.2% this week has raised concern over the global growth outlook. Ulrich Leuchtmann, head of FX at Commerzbank, said that if global production and consumption did not return to 2019 levels soon, then a permanently lower GDP path has to be assumed. This is reflected to some extent in bond markets. 4/INVESTORS GLOOMIER? Investor sentiment has become more cautious, according to weekly polls by the American Association of Individual Investors. BlackRock, the world's biggest investment manager, cut U.S. equities to neutral in its mid-year outlook. Stephen Jen, who runs hedge fund Eurizon SLJ Capital, noted that because China's business cycle was ahead of that of the United States or Europe, weaker data there is filtering through to investor sentiment in the West. 5/COMMODITY WORRIES Popular reflation trades in the commodity markets have also gone into reverse. A ratio of gold/copper prices has fallen 10% after rising to more than 6-1/2 year highs in May.