[Scooter_Stepford]

You certainly know that the NYT article is about a different program than the NYmag article discussed.

Right?

Look, your view on the fecklessness of the administration comes through loud and clear.  And repeatedly.  Many times it is on point; your link to the ABC News piece—if proven true—is all you need.  However, your zeal to play gotcha on any and everything diminishes your legitimate perspective, at least IMO.  You probably don’t care, which is fine.  

In this case, you jumped on something you know little about and took it to an absurd conclusion.  A little common sense and experience would lead one to conclude that designing, engineering, and implementing a complex program with thousands of disparate intermediaries, many times that number of final customers, and with $350 billion on the line will, unfortunately, take some time to get right.  For it to be where it is today-warts and all-is actually an extraordinary achievement.  Of course, that doesn’t pay the bills.  

And just so you know, my wife is a successful small business owner whose future and those of her nine employees depends on receiving funding through PPP.  Our family has a strong interest that this get done right, and quickly.

Good catch on the NYT article and my mistake.  Keeping up with all the minutiae of everything is a full-time job, and I already have another.  This is the article I should've linked to: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/busin...s-aid.html

Accepting all of these delays as a given is silly.  Shortly after an emergency was declared, EPA went ahead and suspended basically all regulations: https://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro...oronavirus

SBA, meanwhile, is insisting that everyone's papers have to be in order before money goes out.  It's pretty clear that the Trump administration is more motivated to help polluters pollute than it is to help working people make a living.  If Trump had made getting money out to businesses and workers priority number one, it would have happened.  But it wasn't. 

And even if these screw ups are just run-of-the-mill screw-ups, it's still on Trump.  He's been in office over 3 years.  His people run every department and office.  If he didn't put the right people in place to have this done right, it's on him.

I am glad to hear your wife is looking after her employees. I know that it's not just workers who are in trouble right now.

Lastly, it's not just SBA loans that are a problem.  Unemployment is a disaster, too, with of immense proportions delays and problems getting people enrolled.  Some of this might be unavoidable, but I've been reading about how making unemployment hard to get is a feature, not a bug, for some states like Florida.  California has had delays, too, but I know from an employee working in that office that they are doing everything they can to process the applications and even moving people from other departments to speed it up.  More on that here: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ame...us-crisis/

I’m not ‘accepting’ anything, but for the reasons stated I don’t ‘expect’ much more and even though it hasn’t worked out for my family yet I am still impressed with what has been done so far.  This is an enormous and complex undertaking; nothing similar has ever been attempted afaik.  I believe (hope with fingers and toes crossed?) that a lot of today’s pain will be gone in the next few weeks.  As JAF and others point out, unfortunately that will be too late for many.

And you are completely right about where the buck stops.  However, it is my view that even if you assigned Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and the Google guys and Zuckerberg and Ross Perot and the very best in finance and government that the results wouldn’t be that different.  The task is that big.

You correctly note the challenges in the unemployment system.  Again, not surprising given the unprecedented surge in applicants.  Also, this is one of the stated reasons for the PPP; it was recognized that the states were wholly unprepared for this wave.  By keeping employees on payroll they would not further burden the unemployment system.  President Trump has said this many times.

We need to start hearing of and seeing progress very soon.  Otherwise Mick’s worst fears might come to pass...

[Scooter_Stepford]

You certainly know that the NYT article is about a different program than the NYmag article discussed.

Right?

Look, your view on the fecklessness of the administration comes through loud and clear.  And repeatedly.  Many times it is on point; your link to the ABC News piece—if proven true—is all you need.  However, your zeal to play gotcha on any and everything diminishes your legitimate perspective, at least IMO.  You probably don’t care, which is fine.  

In this case, you jumped on something you know little about and took it to an absurd conclusion.  A little common sense and experience would lead one to conclude that designing, engineering, and implementing a complex program with thousands of disparate intermediaries, many times that number of final customers, and with $350 billion on the line will, unfortunately, take some time to get right.  For it to be where it is today-warts and all-is actually an extraordinary achievement.  Of course, that doesn’t pay the bills.  

And just so you know, my wife is a successful small business owner whose future and those of her nine employees depends on receiving funding through PPP.  Our family has a strong interest that this get done right, and quickly.

Good catch on the NYT article and my mistake.  Keeping up with all the minutiae of everything is a full-time job, and I already have another.  This is the article I should've linked to: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/busin...s-aid.html

Accepting all of these delays as a given is silly.  Shortly after an emergency was declared, EPA went ahead and suspended basically all regulations: https://thehill.com/policy/energy-enviro...oronavirus

SBA, meanwhile, is insisting that everyone's papers have to be in order before money goes out.  It's pretty clear that the Trump administration is more motivated to help polluters pollute than it is to help working people make a living.  If Trump had made getting money out to businesses and workers priority number one, it would have happened.  But it wasn't. 

And even if these screw ups are just run-of-the-mill screw-ups, it's still on Trump.  He's been in office over 3 years.  His people run every department and office.  If he didn't put the right people in place to have this done right, it's on him.

I am glad to hear your wife is looking after her employees. I know that it's not just workers who are in trouble right now.

Lastly, it's not just SBA loans that are a problem.  Unemployment is a disaster, too, with of immense proportions delays and problems getting people enrolled.  Some of this might be unavoidable, but I've been reading about how making unemployment hard to get is a feature, not a bug, for some states like Florida.  California has had delays, too, but I know from an employee working in that office that they are doing everything they can to process the applications and even moving people from other departments to speed it up.  More on that here: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ame...us-crisis/

I’m not ‘accepting’ anything, but for the reasons stated I don’t ‘expect’ much more and even though it hasn’t worked out for my family yet I am still impressed with what has been done so far.  This is an enormous and complex undertaking; nothing similar has ever been attempted afaik.  I believe (hope with fingers and toes crossed?) that a lot of today’s pain will be gone in the next few weeks.  As JAF and others point out, unfortunately that will be too late for many.

And you are completely right about where the buck stops.  However, it is my view that even if you assigned Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and the Google guys and Zuckerberg and Ross Perot and the very best in finance and government that the results wouldn’t be that different.  The task is that big.

You correctly note the challenges in the unemployment system.  Again, not surprising given the unprecedented surge in applicants.  Also, this is one of the stated reasons for the PPP; it was recognized that the states were wholly unprepared for this wave.  By keeping employees on payroll they would not further burden the unemployment system.  President Trump has said this many times.

We need to start hearing of and seeing progress very soon.  Otherwise Mick’s worst fears might come to pass...