Alan,
Sorry to hear about Janet. My condolences.
Forgive me if this was already posted, but I don't think it was. Alan appeared prominently in this LVRJ article regarding unemployed benefits: https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/p...o-end-2427376/
https://www.reviewjournal.com/wp-con...resize=600,400
Also since he was 69 in August 21, it looks like Alan hit the big 7-0 this year.
I should remember that because I recall noticing that Alan is just about exactly 20 years older than me, and I turned 50 this year.
This isn’t kicking Alan in particular but more an indictment of the system in general.
Why were people of age to be on Social Security and with pensions/retirement accounts getting UC? I understand some want to work and supplement their income but why do they get UC when the job isn’t there anymore? They are still getting their main income supply so they shouldn’t qualify for UC. Totally different than losing 100% of your income that many did during the shutdowns.
The mistakes and fraud losses that were perpetrated by the knee jerk reactions are why inflation is so bad today. And we are all paying for it now. Hopefully books are written some day showing the billions stolen both through direct fraud and undeserving payments.
It looks like The LID is in Vegas now after his recent mercenary gig in the Ukraine. I can see his ride to Alan's left (I had no idea The LID was so religious).Quote:
Originally Posted by Dan Druff
Why would you think someone being on SS or any pension should affect UC? UC is an insurance program that workers pay into to protect against loss of employment. It has absolutely nothing to do with if a person is on social security, or how wealthy they may be or anything else. If the person lost their job and income due to no fault of their own, they are entitled to UC because they have paid into that insurance program.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Boz
Now here is one that will likely also ruffle your feathers Boz. You probably already know this because I mentioned it before. My brother and I qualified for 11 weeks of UC in 2020, when the casinos were ordered closed, under the expanded UC rules for the covid pandemic.
Personally, I don't think anyone in my position, and that includes "gig workers" or people that work as contractors or consultants that normally wouldn't qualify should have qualified. That is part of working in that kind of situation. BUT, on the other hand, this covid shutdown was something very out of the ordinary. Businesses were ordered closed, eliminating income sources for many that don't technically work for an employer (like myself). So the government decided to help, by expanding eligibility and I accepted, but only for those 11 weeks that casinos were closed.
So a shout out to Alan here, because having never filed for UC before, and especially with these new rules that even the unemployment workers didn't understand, the system was very difficult to navigate. Alan, who seemed knowledgeable, and was keeping up to date because of his own situation, was very helpful to me filing our claims.
Now you mentioned the fraud losses, later in your post that I did not quote. The real fraud which added up to massive amounts, were not perpetrated by people filing for UC claims fraudulently or undeservedly. The real problem was the "loans" given out to businesses to help keep them afloat. People were "making up" businesses and getting loans that should not have qualified and using the money on anything and everything except what it was intended. Even a number of politicians spouses and families got "loans" they should not have received, some of these loans large amounts of money.
Oh...writing this post (above) reminds me of something.
To the nit wit, claiming I do not make a living playing blackjack, but am some sort of male prostitute or hustle, I qualified and received UC benefits in 2020 as a professional blackjack player. Why? because I had the documentation necessary to prove it.
I know that won't stop you from repeating your lies, but just saying....:cool:
KJ, we are going to agree and disagree on some points here.
As for the business fraud, you are correct, it was rampant and I have wrote about it multiple times before. It’s in the hundreds of billions and a good amount was from foreign actors and will never be coming back.
But this story was about UC and believe it or not I disagree with you that people like you shouldn’t have been eligible. They absolutely should have because their “job” was not available when the casinos were closed. But my issue is how easy and rushed it was so there was zero checking to see if they were eligible. A professional gambler that files as such should have been eligible. My issue is how was that determined and how much should they have been eligible for. We all know “some” Professionals (I’m not using the word AP here) don’t report everything they make so if they weren’t reporting much income in the previous 1-2-3 years, then they shouldn’t have been eligible. Or should have been eligible for a percentage based on that income. And that didn’t happen, money was quickly sent out and if any audits were done later, the only penalty is against future UC claims. And reports are few audits were actually done.
Now for the Alan and similar individuals already retired yet still working, I absolutely do not believe they should have been eligible or at best have been means tested again. By means tested I don’t mean assets as millionaires still working are eligible when they lose their jobs. But I do believe someone already getting government benefits, which SS is should have been considered. Think about someone working 2 jobs, if they lose 1 they aren’t eligible for UC for the 2nd unless the income from the 2nd (say PT job) is under the allowed level while collecting.
Now for the self employed individuals, my thoughts are the same as for gamblers, gig workers and others above. Sadly no research was done to see how profitable, if at all, the businesses were in the previous 1-2-3 years to determine eligibility. If someone wasn’t reporting profits and paying taxes in the previous years that isn’t a business to me, it’s a bad hobby. And as such they shouldn’t have been eligible for UC since they survived without making (reported) money from the business for years.
And the business end of it is where much of the UC fraud came in because of the lack of checking before issuing checks. And where people created fake businesses for both PPP loans and UC benefits. You could argue the system wasn’t ready for the amount of applications that came in at one and getting cash out to people was a higher priority than fraud and that’s hard to argue against. But the fact is little has been done since to correct the errors and we are all paying for it through inflation.
Here are a few stories on the fraud.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-po...dentity-theft/
https://www.justice.gov/usao-edca/pr...benefits-fraud
https://risk.lexisnexis.com/insights...er-than-others
Yup, the PPP loans that were supposed to be for business owners, much of it was fraudulently stolen by thieves!Quote:
Originally Posted by kewlJ
This was most likely the largest fraud in United States history.
If you applied and showed the bank the documents needed, you got the loan. There was no verification process of the documents. The main reason was because the Federal Government reimbursement the banks. So there was actually an incentive by banks to give out these loans since they made money on the interest and there was ZERO RISK to the bank.
In the matter of an hour a fraudster could have all the documents needed to have a business with HUNDREDS of employees and get hundreds of thousands of dollars. The really bold ones applied and received Millions of dollars. Many of these fraudsters were foreign scammers. Then they take these exact same documents and just change the business name and have their friend go apply at another bank. Rinse and repeat. There was so much fraud that if you kept your loans to under 50k, most likely they wouldn’t even investigate it. If you look at the people who plead guilty to 50k or less in stolen PPP money they mostly got probation. So yeah, they take 50k with a .000001% chance of being prosecuted. Great risk/reward lol.
The sad part is they have convicted less than 200 of these scammers. I read an article that says they are committed to going after more, mentioning the statue of limitations is 10 years.
Unemployment was just as bad. Especially here in California. It was an absolute joke. I think some states were bad, but none as bad as Calif. Every social security number that currently did not have wages being reported was worth about 30k in benefits. You simply had to say you were working for someone under the table and that work is no longer available. The worst part about it was when they first started the federal Unemployment benefits in March or April of 2020 many scammers did not apply initially as they were unaware it was vulnerable. In Calif. they were giving “back pay” based on your word alone that you were unemployed. All the way up until around Oct/Nov 2020 you could apply and get “back pay” since March. Up to 8 months backpay, then get benefits every 2 weeks Until Sept or October 2021. Gravy train. Most applied and instantly got 15-20k in backpay. Homeless encampments were partying like you wouldn’t believe. One homeless encampment in my city that was predominantly tents literally turned into an RV/trailer park due to the influx of cash. In addition all motels were near 100% occupancy. When there were rooms, they were about a 50% increase in price to rent one. Best of all car prices. Remember how car prices shot up? In my state they were extraordinarily high, the news wanted you to believe something about “chips” and new car production. It primarily was because these people were using these large amounts of unemployment to pay cash for a used car or put a down payment with a buy here pay here lot. Well guess what? REPOSSESSIONS are at historic levels for the 1st quarter of 2022. All these people that bought vehicles during the pandemic are now getting repo’d since they couldn’t afford them to begin with.
So much of the high car prices was due to a SHORTAGE due to supply and demand. A shortage due to unemployment folks buying vehicles that never would have been bought.
I have a friend who owns a small used car lot. He said about 85% of his sales during the pandemic was “unemployment money”.
Another quick story:
After the pandemic started, Calif announced that speeding tickets in excess of 100 MPH went up 87% and they gave some retarded reasoning as to why. They said the state was going to spend a huge amount of money on a campaign to warn drivers of speeding since they believe this is a trend that would continue. I wanted to notify them and tell them the real reason was in a short period of time you have certain folks on unemployment that have never had vehicles before, many whom are unlicensed Buying vehicles with unemployment money. The number likely being in the 6 figures nation wide. I knew they wouldn’t listen to me, so I didn’t bother. I let them spend tax payer money on their campaign.
What happen after all these people got their vehicles taken away by the police or repo’d for non payment? Well, 100 mph tickets decreased.
Boz, Unemployment is not means tested because it is not some government handout program. It is an insurance policy that the worker has paid into. Therefore, it does not matter how much money he has or how much he makes from other sources. If he loses the job he was working, due to no fault of his own, he is entitled to that insurance policy which is unemployment.
Let me give you an example of why you are wrong. 66 year old man, his wife is passed or maybe divorced, so he is single. He receives social security, let's say $1200 a month, but that is not enough for him to pay all his bills, rent of $750, car insurance and upkeep, food, utilities, co pays on medicines and medical expenses, ect. So he works a job on top, 25 hours a week, let's say. Pick any number of jobs you want. So he loses this job when his business shuts down for covid. Why do you think he is not entitled to unemployment? He can't make ends meet on just his social security, that is why he was working in the first place.
Now I will tell you what was supposed to be means tested were the three stimulus payments. Only people working and making under a certain amount were supposed to be eligible. So on this one, I agree, that people on Social security shouldn't have been eligible unless they were working on top of their SS. But that is not how it worked. Every person on social security automatically received the 3 stimulus payments that were meant to hold working people over.
So in this case let's look at a 66 year old man and his 68 year old wife. They both collect social security and that is what they live off of. So neither was affected by any shutdown as far as loss or reduction in income. So why did they get these payments? These payments were just extra money.
In the end, this was an emergency crisis, like none we have had before. The government attempted to get money in people's hands to hold them over. There was no time to really think things through. Now with the benefit of hindsight, some of these were not well thought out, or maybe not thought out at all. I think the intent was good and they did the best they could. And like everything now a days, there were those looking to take advantage.
It was a stupid move and helped lead to our current inflation.
Whatever happened to "survival of the fittest?"
Interesting discussion. Even though I was on social security I didnt get any stimulus payment -- because I also had a pension and a business.
I did not get a PPP loan. I applied but didn't qualify. The government shutdowns put me out of business because my advertising clients were put out of business.
My "unemployment" that I received wasn't the big check regular workers get. I got $181 from Nevada each week and $300 from Uncle Sammy each week. "Regular unemployment" paid some people double or triple what I got.
After not getting PPP money or even an SBA loan I was happy to get something back for all the taxes I paid through my career.
It all winds up at the crap table. So what's the difference....RIPQuote:
Originally Posted by Alan Mendelson
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan Mendelson
Alan, I’m curious, what was the reason they gave you when you were denied for the PPP loan?
Quote:
Originally Posted by tableplayIt looks like The LID is in Vegas now after his recent mercenary gig in the Ukraine. I can see his ride to Alan's left (I had no idea The LID was so religious).Quote:
Originally Posted by Dan Druff
This is Barney
That looks like one of the LIDs transportation devices and he was in town on a photo shop contract with a prominent video pokers advantage player when that article appeared.
Positive Variance. There were several reasons including that I didnt have sufficient profits (I am semi retired) but also I had no employees as I used freelancers for shooting and editing and my salespeople were Commission only -- but they got healthy commissions.
Thanks for the update Barney. Was the LID always a religious guy (I noticed the "Jesus is Coming" message on the door of his transportation device) or was this some influence he got while in the Ukraine (I read no one celebrates Kwanzaa** or Hanukah** out there, so I'm guessing the main religion is Christianity) ?Quote:
Originally Posted by Barney
Anyway, I'm glad to see The LID is safely back stateside and has some gigs going.
**
Once again you are wrongQuote:
Originally Posted by kewlJ
You could have qualified basically by just filling out the paperwork fraudulently and received money. Imagine needing to have Alan help you fill out the most basic shit, but you want everyone to believe you have beat the casinos for millions one black chip at a time counting. Give me a break bro.
Gunplay again I’m willing to bet you. Anything that measures intelligence vs you for any amount of money your willing to bet. I’m just a nit wit so it should be a very easy bankroll building bet for you. Bet on yourself champion. Easy right
Seed value I didnt help Kewlj fill out any paperwork. I've never met him nor do I know anything about him. But I did send him info about how professional gamblers were entitled to self-employed unemployment insurance under the special pandemic rules.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kewlJ
One of my favorite things is reading walls of text on a subject from people who have no idea what they are talking about. You don’t own a business, you have never provided an opportunity for someone else in your life by creating a job. You read some google search on unemployment, and regurgitate the info here.
You are Bigger fraud then singer is supposed to be .