The first of the month is coming again

The city's ban on evictions is technically supposed to expire on May 4.  Which is to say you can be evicted this coming month for having missed rent while a stay-at-home order due to expire May 15 is still in effect. You could actually be evicted the whole time, if your landlord happens to be this particular sort of asshole. But pretty soon it won't make much difference.  It's time to pay up all that money you haven't been able to go earn or else hit the road.

That is, unless somebody does something. 

Thousands of jobless New Orleans residents unable to afford their rent due to coronavirus-related shutdowns are facing the end of another month when payments are due. And with stay-at-home orders still in effect, housing advocates are calling on city judges to extend the eviction halt currently set to expire next week.

A coalition of groups wants the 1st and 2nd City Courts to stop evictions until Aug. 24, long past when state and city leaders hope to reopen the economy. In a letter to judges sent Friday, they argue that New Orleans courts risk creating an administrative nightmare if they don't extend the ban due in part to federal rules banning some evictions until late July.

I dunno. August 24 doesn't sound all that "long past" the May 15 date in terms of rent payments.  Especially during the summer when nothing is happening. Especially during this summer when an extreme amount of nothing will be happening.  Maybe we should ask the judges what they think.

If judges restart evictions before Aug. 24, they will be forced to sift through paperwork to determine whether properties are covered under the CARES Act, Reed said.

The call to extend the eviction moratorium was signed by thirty-five groups, including Disability Rights Louisiana, the Music and Culture Coalition of New Orleans, the New Orleans Family Justice Center and United Way of Southeast Louisiana.

Veronica Henry, the chief judge of 1st City Court, declined through a spokesman to comment on the letter.

That's a shame.  Well they're going to have to talk about it at some point. 

Hey! Did you know that one of these judgeships is up for election this summer?  That's right.  When you receive your very convenient unnecessarily complicated mail-in ballot or don your protective space suit to step out and confront a (probably) well sanitized voting machine on April 4 June 25 July 11 (probably! we really hope!) you will find a  very long ballot to decipher. The very long ballot will, of course, include the names of several individuals who are no longer competing in a now irrelevant Presidential primary. Then, there will be an extremely long list of names you've never heard of belonging to people seeking positions you may not care very much about on the executive committees of the parish and state Democratic and Republican parties.  Only after you have managed to read all the way down to the bottom of all that, will you find candidates for First City Court Section B. (Currently occupied on a temporary basis by... get this... Nadine  Ramsey)  A few of them have already dropped out. As of this writing, the active candidates are Aylin Acikalin, Robbins Graham, Schalyece Harrison, Marissa Hutabarat, and Sara Lewis.  

Don't know anything about those folks yet?  Well, get to it.  You've only got three more rent due days to go before you have to make your mind up.

They want to compel you to work regardless

A couple of weeks ago we talked about Bill Cassidy's dream of putting you on a list that determines whether or not you "can" go back to work. The point, there, isn't so much about keeping you safe as much as it is about denying you protections and benefits.  It's also based on a kind of anti-science wishful thinking currently bubbling up through fraudulent research like this.

The email reveals that the researchers did not disclose another way participants were recruited that could have further skewed the results. In addition to targeting a specific demographic of parents in a wealthy part of Silicon Valley — making it even less likely that the participants represented a random sample — the email falsely claimed that the study’s antibody test was FDA approved, and was worded in a way that might have disproportionately attracted people who had previously been sick. It also misrepresented what participants could learn about their health from the testing. Advertisement

Given how new this coronavirus is, scientists do not definitively know how long antibodies can protect you from getting sick again. Yet Su’s email stated: “If you have antibodies against the virus, you are FREE from the danger of a) getting sick or b) spreading the virus. In China and U.K. they are asking for proof of immunity before returning to work. If you know any small business owners or employees that have been laid off, let them know -- they no longer need to quarantine and can return to work without fear.”

They don't care whether or not it is actually safe to send people back to work.  They're just looking for an excuse to do it anyway. 

They did not actually mean to do that

Hey remember when the big threat to public safety, symbol of systemic inequality, and destabilizer of the city budget was localized entirely within this one block of the city? Those were the days, huh. 
Anyway it's still there.  And, probably, it will be for... some amount of time.  There's a lot to sort out.

The developer of the mangled Hard Rock Hotel construction project in downtown New Orleans is asking an Orleans Parish judge to stop the city from enforcing a deadline next week for it to “commence” demolition work at the collapse site.

Potentially at stake, beyond the timing of the long-delayed demolition of a hotel project that partially collapsed more than six months ago, is about $5 million.

That’s how much the city wants to bill 1031 Canal Development LLC for emergency response, payroll for city employees and the estimated cost to repair Rampart Street, into which a crane from the failed construction remains speared. That’s about a quarter of what the city claims the developer owes in abatement.

That same $5 million figure is also what a city hearing officer last month ordered 1031 Canal Development to pony up in a bond that would cover penalties should work on the demolition not begin by April 29, court records show. The developer claims it doesn’t have the money.

It's hard to parse but I think this says the dispute is really more about the deadline than it is about the sum or even about the spurring of any action, for that matter.  It's hard to "commence demolition" when there is still no agreement on the method or a contractor in place to do whatever that work ends up being.

The developers don't agree with the demolition company the city has selected. Probably because they think they can get a better price. But the reason they supply in their legal filing is more interesting.

The relationship was already strained between 1031 Canal and Griffin, which performed the October explosion of two cranes that were dangling precariously off the collapsed job site.

“After raising the price for the crane demolition at the last minute from $1.25 million to $5 million, Griffin failed to fully demolish the cranes," the developer said, a public admission that the crane demo was far from perfect despite statements from city officials that it all went as planned. "One crane remains speared into Rampart Street, and the other remains hanging over Canal Street."

Recall that prior to the crane demolitions, city officials told us the plan was for them to fold in on themselves as though one were closing an umbrella.  A few days later, after the explosions left one crane embedded nose down in the center of Rampart Street and the other dangling precariously over Canal, they told us "both cranes behaved as expected."  That seemed wrong at the time. But no one really challenged them on that point until now.

Bosses winning

As Congress moves to shore up the already drained funds for SBA's Paycheck Protection Program loans, *some* Democrats have tried asking if they could also maybe do something to prop up the state and local governments whose budgets have been cratered by the crisis and shut down.  But, guess what.

Democrats have been pushing to boost funding to cash-strapped states and local governments whose revenues have cratered. They had proposed $150 billion for the effort, but GOP leaders stood hard in opposition, at least regarding the current package of COVID-19 aid.

Guess your school and streets and sewers and buses aren't as high a priority as these large publicly traded companies who have been looting the "small business" aid.   Or, you know, coal. Coal is very important right now.

A coal company based in Indiana received $10 million from a federal loan program intended to rescue faltering small businesses from the economic ravages of the coronavirus pandemic.

But Hallador Energy has several hundred more employees than the standard firm awarded money under the $2 trillion stimulus bill. And it has at least two important ties to the Trump administration: Scott Pruitt, the former Environmental Protection Agency administrator, was hired last year to lobby for it; and the company’s former government relations director now works at the Energy Department.

The bosses won the pandemic

I'm still finding myself surprised at the speed at which the narrative has moved toward hostility. It's barely even the peak of the health crisis and we are already pivoting to the part where we blame unemployed people for being unemployed.

But in her Kentucky coffee shop, Marietta wasn't looking for someone to cover the cost of idling her employees. She wanted them to keep working. Unfortunately, she says, the $10 to $15 an hour they'd make serving coffee is no match for the new jobless benefits.

"We have these lovely baristas," Marietta said. "They're hardworking individuals. But literally this is the best possible pay of their lives they could possibly get, to be unemployed."

This story, in particular, is stupid because, for one thing, if you don't lay off your employees they aren't eligible for benefits. So, if these coffee shop employees chose to quit rather than keep their ten bucks an hour they would be screwed. It shouldn't work that way, of course. But it does so one wonders what the complaint actually is here.

Second, obviously, nobody should have to work for less than what actually sustains them.  It would be lovely to think that maybe that would be the lesson we could move forward from the crisis with.  But I think we all know the only conclusion we're allowed to draw, as ever, is that the poors are poors because they are lazy.  Always and forever, amen.

Don't feed the trolls

Right now there is a massively dangerous astroturf campaign funded by the Kochs and the DeVoses intended to force vulnerable workers to put their lives at risk for the sake of some bosses' profits. It's a national campaign that, like many similar billionaire-funded stunts enjoys the support of the cable news networks and the President of the United States.  Locally it has found voice in the form of a sparsely attended protests at the state capitol last week, a statement from the Jefferson Parish Chamber of Commerce  as well as a full page ad that the Advocate decided to publish for some reason.
 
The campaign's messaging is built around an obscene death cult that equates the most brutal forms of capitalism with FREEDOM.  The death cult propagandists want you to associate public health directives meant to slow the spread of a pandemic with totalitarian police state surveillance tactics.  The smart response to this inflamed rhetoric would be to ignore it entirely and remain calmly focused on giving people the information and support they need to stay healthy.  Naturally, our local leadership has decided, instead, to take the bait.

During the press conference, Cantrell cast her critics as out of touch with the city's public health needs. She also suggested they were prioritizing money over people's lives.

"To the citizens of the city of New Orleans, please know that I will and have always continued to put the health of the people first. They are the priority. And not only that.... but you can be reassured that I will not be bullied," Cantrell said.

She's right, of course.  But it would be much more helpful if she didn't put it in these personalized Trumpian terms that center individual conflicts.  It makes her sound defensive when she doesn't have anything to be defensive about. The people attacking her are trolls. Responding to them like this just validates their obscene argument.  They're trying to say your public health policies resemble the behaviors of a dictatorial police state.  That's absurd. So just don't give them anything to... oh goddammit....

New Orleans police plan to set up checkpoints throughout Orleans Parish to "verbally provide information" about the current stay-at-home order related to the coronavirus pandemic.

Police also will check that everyone is wearing seatbelts, the driver is licensed and the vehicle is registered and insured.

Nothing makes me feel safer in a time of crisis than a random stop and frisk operation.  That will definitely help everybody calm down.

Gotta build that empty hotel, though

In solidarity with the hundreds of unemployed and habitually abused New Orleans hospitality workers fighting for a fair share of the Convention Center's ill gotten slush fund, the Communications Workers of America are threatening to pull their 2021 convention out of New Orleans.

The Convention Center has yet to address the demands from a coalition of 35 local groups, called the Coalition to Create a Fair Fund for Hospitality Workers. That qualifies as an ongoing labor conflict, a CWA official told The Lens.

“There’s almost always a clause that says we don’t have to go there if there’s a labor dispute,” CWA Secretary-General Sara Steffens told The Lens in an interview. “Every union builds that into our contracts for these conferences and conventions. The last thing we’d ever do is cross a picket line.”

The current dispute began in March, when the newly-formed local coalition began calling on the Convention Center to release $100 million of its reserves — totalling about $180 to $200 million — to support the tens of thousands of tourism workers in New Orleans who are out of work due to the coronavirus crisis.

This will be a fun argument to watch. We already know the Convention Center considers their hotel scheme where they throw public money at hotel and real estate developers to be an "economic recovery" project.  A statement from the hospitality workers points out the obvious with regard to how such a "recovery" actually needs to be distributed.

“As Mr. Sawaya said, the Convention Center’s ‘duty during these challenging times is to provide service to [their] community.’ Their community is made up of nearly 100k hospitality workers across the GNO region without whom there would be neither conventions nor tourism nor the various taxes that support the Convention Center.  We hope that the concerns raised by the CWA as well as ourselves get a less dismissive hearing in the near future.”

I suppose the Convention Center could say that there's a good chance the CWA convention, like a lot of conventions, is going to end up getting cancelled or greatly reduced in size anyway. But if that's true, then it makes a brand new hotel seem even more ridiculous than it already was. Meanwhile, there are people who could use that money right now.

Happy BP Day!

Wow has it been 10 years already?  It seems like only yesterday that Cat Island... existed.

For decades oil and gas companies dug exploration canals in the marshlands, which allowed for saltwater intrusion and blocked the hydrological flow of the wetlands. These factors caused the land to erode, subside and disappear at some of the highest rates in the world. Add sea level rise to this, and "we are sinking like a rock," Hahn said.

"You hear all the time, 'Louisiana is losing a football field every 45 minutes.' And when you are with these old timers, they're like: 'This used to be marsh, this used to be land.' You don't get your mind wrapped around it till you get out there."

Talking about Cat Island, Hahn said, "I saw it, not only in my lifetime ... it was only a couple of years ... you could actually see this piece of land shrinking until it was finally gone and became open water."

The oil from the 2010 disaster dramatically worsened the threat to coastal Louisiana. Researchers from LSU found that the BP oil spill accelerated land loss by almost 300% in the first six months after the spill.

For the most part we've been ignoring the problem since then.  Has it gotten better?  You would think it must have. Otherwise the Trump administration wouldn't be rolling back emissions limits now, right? In fact we're pretty sure everything is just fine out there now.

So, yay, we made it! Ten whole years. To celebrate, we're giving away as much crude oil as you can take.

WTI Crude now under $2 per barrel pic.twitter.com/Z2ruuFL1Cb

— Michael McDonough (@M_McDonough) April 20, 2020

We elected the bosses

The reason the bosses are winning the pandemic is because we put the bosses and friends of the bosses in charge of our government.  The reason your unemployment benefits are jammed up right now, your stimulus check isn't coming for months, and your state and city governments are about to slash any and every public service that benefits you is because you elected a bunch of bosses to guide us through the crisis. 

It's important to remember that when you go online and post at how mad mad mad you are at Amazon for its aggressive and horrifying union suppression tactics, it's important to remember that your state and local elected officials, only two short years ago were tripping over themselves to shovel $ 6 billion in public subsidies to this company in hopes of "winning" its hideous headquarters relocation sweepstakes.

The bosses are going to keep doing this to you as long as you keep voting them into power.

Congress to cities: Drop dead

The bosses have won the pandemic.  Already the emergency has occasioned a massive transfer of wealth to the wealthiest tranche of American plutocrats and, yet another, re-writing of every rule of finance for the benefit of bankers and stockholders.  Already we've seen massive unemployment met with only temporary relief drizzled out through a broken benefits delivery system and a one time check that many may never see.  The bosses don't care about your problems.  They just want a more compliant workforce. "The age of coddling is over," is their motto now.

And so it will continue to be. Municipal and state governments everywhere have been sent reeling by the economic interruption.  New Orleans is facing an estimated $150 million budget deficit now. But it is not alone. Every state and every city needs, at least, the same immediate federal injection of funds that have been afforded to the banking system. Otherwise, the basic services and infrastructure you depend on (your schools, your streets, your EMS and fire departments, your freaking water management) will be left to collapse. This is a choice that policymakers can make now.  And look what they are choosing.

A key sticking point remains, however: Money for state and local governments struggling to deal with the economic fallout from the virus’ lockdowns. On Friday night, Democrats offered Mnuchin money for the Paycheck Protection Program, hospitals as well as $150 billion for state and localities. On Friday night, Democrats proposed to Mnuchin providing the $250 billion on the table for the Paycheck Protection Program as well as more money for hospitals, plus $150 billion for state and localities.

But according to two Republicans following the talks, money for state and local governments is a red line for the GOP and would likely trigger opposition that would derail any agreement. Because Congress is on recess until May 4, any member can object to a deal. And conservative senators are likely to tank any agreement that delivers a large increase in funds for state and local governments, Republicans said.

This is what they want.  They want a cowed and compliant workforce suffering under a civic regime dissolved entirely into the hands of private profiteers. The pandemic has been a big win on that front.  Congratulations.

Pressing the advantage

Well you at least have to hand it to the Convention Center board for being on the ball.  A week ago we spoke into the Twitter tube half in jest that they'd be this cynical in a few months.

Give it a few months and they will come back and tell us the hotel is a COVID crisis "recovery" project

— skooks (@skooks) April 9, 2020

 

Turns out it only took them five days to get there.

On Tuesday, the Convention Center board’s finance committee advanced a $5.4 million contract to hire an executive architect for the center’s five-year, $557 million capital plan. The board shot down the contract twice earlier this year over complaints that the proposed contractor, Populous Architects, did not include any locally owned small or minority-owned firms as part of its bid.

Populous is attempting to address those concerns by adding two subcontractors, both of which are small businesses. The total contract amount increased from the originally proposed roughly $4 million for Populous alone, to $5.4 million for all three companies. The contract still needs approval from the full board, which is next scheduled to meet on April 22.

“This is the first step in getting that moving and making sure we reinvest in our facilities so that we can be part of the economic recovery from this current crisis, and certainly the right thing to do,” Morial Convention Center President and General Manager Michael Sawaya said during Tuesday’s meeting. “One of the most important things we can do today and for the future is improve our facilities and make sure they are more competitive going forward.”

Remarkable.  Of course if they really wanted to "be part of the economic recovery" they would release the hundreds of millions of dollars of public money sitting in their ill gotten slush fund to relieve the economic hardship of the hospitality workers off of whose backs that money was stolen in the first place.   But why should they do that? We're only a few months away from people like Senator Kennedy here forcing all those poor saps back to work in a labor market that is going to be even friendlier to the bosses than before.

In other words, the bosses are winning the pandemic just like they win every disaster. As usual it's going to take a while for people to realize that.

Safety net in name only

"But that's how it's supposed to work"  Really, it is.

Another day and another set of issues for the beleaguered Louisiana Workforce Commission: Large numbers of jobless workers complained on social media Tuesday that they received only one of the two $600 extra payments the federal government owed them.

The agency is aware of the problem and will ensure that everyone receives what they are due, said Robert Wooley, assistant secretary for unemployment benefits and a former state insurance commissioner.

These benefits systems are designed to be hostile to benefits applicants.  Kicking the poors has been a top priority in American politics for decades and this is a perfect expression of that. Now a lot of people who didn't think they could be the poors are seeing what that is like.

I'm aware that some left activists see this as a strategic opportunity. Once everyone sees how broken and inhumane the system is, surely that will be a catalyst for fixing the broken and inhumane system.  But that's not what's going to happen. Anyone who thinks so hasn't been paying attention to how this works. The most likely outcome of mass contact with a broken system is further denigration of faith in the system.  Which, of course, is what this project has been about all along. Government-can't-fix-anyone's-problems is a deliberate self-fulfilling prophecy.

Americans are not class conscious political actors. They are individuated consumers. If the social benefits system is not working for them, they will assume it's because they have chosen to buy into the wrong product.

Have attempted all three state and federal avenues of relief today and none had any answers or movement. Pivoting to capitalism.

— Rev. Varg Vargas (@vargvargas) April 14, 2020

There's no collective realization that "we're all in this together." The more powerful narrative in American politics is, "Maybe everyone is poors now but I am going to be a better, smarter poor than those other lazy suckers over there."  We can go on like this pretty much forever no matter how many die along the way.

Taking it coming and going

It's not enough that the fed can print trillions of dollars and just hand it over to the banks. That insulting little $1200 scrap you thought you were getting in return for letting them do that, yeah well the bank can take that too.

This week, the $1,200 CARES Act payments Congress approved in response to the coronavirus crisis will begin to appear in Americans’ bank accounts. The funds will be wired to eligible recipients who previously authorized the IRS to post their refunds (or Social Security payments) through direct deposit. This will speed relief far more quickly than having the IRS mail a check, which could take up to five months.

But the money may not make it into the hands of those who need it to pay bills, buy food, or just survive amid mass unemployment and widespread suffering. Individuals might first have to fend off their own bank, which has just been given the power to seize the $1,200 payment and use it to pay off outstanding debt.

Do we know how profoundly fucked we are? Has it even begun to sink in a little bit?

I really don't think it has.  This week, the news is still trying to get you to focus your hopes on the "Phase 4" relief bill.  Ooh maybe they'll finally get it right this time!  If there even is a  Phase 4, they definitely will not get it right. All of this is just play acting.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer said Monday that they won’t agree to the Trump administration’s insistence on more money for small business loans unless their demands are met for additional funding for hospitals, state and local governments and food stamp recipients.

But Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the Democrats’ demands should wait for another day, while the small business program needs more money now.

“We’ve committed to small businesses. We should top up that program now,” Mnuchin said at a briefing of the White House coronavirus task force. “I know the Democrats want to talk about more money for hospitals and states. Right now, we’re just sending the money out to the hospitals and states. They haven’t come close to using that money.”

The time for Pelosi and Schumer to fight for those things was before they gave the Republicans everything they wanted in the "CARES Act" bailout. Instead they got nothing and now they have nothing to bargain.  Mnuchin is asking to "fix" the SBA program (which does need fixing!) but that isn't something Republicans are going to make a deal with you over. Certainly not over anything that matters.

As far as the right is concerned, they are "winning" the COVID disaster.  The corporate-financial sector can print as much money as it ever needs or wants forever while scores of Americans are about to be force-marched back to work under the most precarious and dangerous conditions they've faced in a long time with no expectation of relief from anyone in power.  Mitch McConnell isn't about to bargain that away.  The time to force him to do that was before you gave him everything he wanted up front. 

If Democrats actually wanted the stimulus to be better they would have fought for a better stimulus. But, really, Democrats only want to appear as though they would have liked a better stimulus. The game now is have a fake fight over a bill that might not even happen so they can say later that they "fought" for you.

Prospects for resolving the congressional standoff are unclear as there appear to be few if any negotiations occurring between the two sides.

“Small businesses, hospitals, frontline workers and state and local governments across the country are struggling to keep up with this national crisis. They need more help from the federal government and they need it fast — our nurses, doctors and health-care workers need it as much as anyone else,” Schumer and Pelosi said in their statement.

“Further changes must also be made to the SBA’s assistance initiative, as many eligible small businesses continue to be excluded from the Paycheck Protection Program by big banks with significant lending capacity,” they said. “Funding for Covid-19 SBA disaster loans and grants must be significantly increased to satisfy the hundreds of billions in oversubscribed demand.”

Pelosi and Schumer had demanded an additional $150 billion for cities and states, $100 billion for hospitals and health-care systems and an additional 15 percent increase in benefits for food stamp recipients.

In truth, though, they don't give a shit.  Otherwise they wouldn't be trying to open negotiations at $150 billion for states and cities when the National Governor's Associations is already (all nice and bi-partisanly) asking for $500 billion. 

Nevermind that, though. In a few weeks, we will have "reopened the economy" and the conversation will already be about how soon we can cut off everyone's unemployment and force them back to work. And while that's happened we'll still be asked to thank Nancy and Chuck for having tried so hard to help.

Oh look, a task force

Do they need someone to tell them?

Gov. John Bel Edwards has launched a new task force to help combat COVID-19 across Louisiana, with an emphasis on helping the state's most vulnerable population.

Earlier this week, it was revealed that COVID-19-related deaths are disproportionately high among the state's — and the country's — African American communities, where pre-existing conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, heart disease and kidney failure are more prevalent and can contribute to fatalities.

Everyone, the governor said, should "have the opportunity to obtain their highest level of health. This [task force] will leverage research capabilities and intellectual brain power in a collective effort to tackle this issue."

I guess it's good that they are acknowledging the fundamental fact of systemic environmental racism and its impact on health outcomes. But it seems like this, "leverage research capabilities" thing is just a directive to send a political problem off into the corner for to be studied rather than acted upon.  Do they really need someone to tell them what the problem is? I think they must know.

The immediate assignment, Edwards said, is to "make sure communities with health disparities are blanketed with good information on COVID-19 safety and prevention; provide the medical community with best practices and protocols for treating communities with underlying medical conditions and health disparities; and ensure testing availability and ease of access for all communities."

Oh, I see. It's worse than I thought. See, they're gonna "blanket the community with good information."   As if people trapped in hazardous living conditions just need to be made better aware of what's the matter. But what if they're already aware?

NEW ORLEANS, La. (WVUE) - People in St. John Parish before would tell you how cancer affects nearly every family here, but with the threat of the coronavirus, they say the amount of death in their community is shocking. “Blacks as a whole are being victimized by this in disproportionate numbers,” citizen, Bobby Taylor said.

Taylor is accustomed to fighting something he can’t see. He’s long been a part of the concerned citizens of St. John, which protests the nearby rubber plant, Denka-Dupont from emitting chloroprene into the air. An element the EPA has labeled a likely carcinogen. But now, those in St. John Parish, a predominately black community are also dying from coronavirus at an alarming rate.

“The weakest people are going to suffer the most and it’s evident that we are the weakest people in the nation and maybe in the world because of our exposure to the onslaught of these chemicals,” Taylor said.

The LSU tumor registry has found higher cancer rates in St. John parish.

Environmental scientist, Wilma Subra says given the high rate of cancer and other pre-existing conditions, it's no wonder St. John is seeing more coronavirus deaths.

“Those pre-existing conditions are associated with the chemicals that are released in the air by the industrial facility in St. John,” Subra said.

The Governor's task force announcement doesn't say anything about how our burgeoning (and heavily subsidized) petrochemical  industry plagues poor and black communities in South Louisiana with cancer and respiratory illness. Seems like a pretty big oversight for a panel looking at underlying co-morbidity issues with COVID 19.  Wonder how that happned.

Of course they will be directed to look at the "social determinants" of health. John Bel says we need to find out what those are.

On Friday, Edwards said, "We need to answer what are the social determinants of health disparities and how do we ensure health equity for all of our citizens?"

The task force will begin its work immediately to help minimize the spread across the state and in particular communities where members are the most vulnerable. "The work is going to benefit everyone in the state," Edwards said.

I sure hope they find out.

Safety net in name only

The important thing to understand about the abusive process by which we make people apply for social benefits is that it is abusive because we chose to make it that way.

But it may be that not all of the claimants have successfully signed up for the benefits. Facebook pages are full of people complaining that they can’t get through on the phone or online to file their claims. If they do, Facebook posters grouse, they can’t get answers to their questions.

In previous interviews, Dejoie has counseled patience, saying that she and her staff are working around the clock. Her agency was organized to handle 1,500 claims per week – not 60 or 70 times that.

“Nothing about this is normal,” she said in the email.

But almost everything about this is normal.  The state agency that administers these benefits is understaffed and underequipped. The application process is complicated and invasive and requires people to prove on a weekly basis that they are trying to find work or they can be dropped. The purpose of this is to prevent as many people from actually receiving any help as possible.

We chose this. We chose not to have a social safety net to speak of in this country. This was what Bill Clinton meant when he promised to "end welfare as we know it."  Our political leadership fully bought into the idea that poor people are poor because they are lazy and must be prodded into work under whatever circumstance capital decrees. That has been the paradigm under which all discourse has proceeded since.  It's why Louisiana spent several months recenlty trying to attach work requirements to medicaid.  It's why Joe Biden says, even now, that he would veto a single payer healthcare bill if it came across his desk.

Here is a book I recommended last year by Virginia Eubanks about the insidious way technocratic neoliberalism has birthed dystopian experiments with "data driven" screening systems for welfare benefits. Eubanks argues that these systems constitute a "digital poorhouse" that exists symbiotically with the expanding police state. Again, this is no accident. What we call a "safety net" is actually an elaborate trap that keeps poor people in precarious and isolated situations where they can be more easily intimidated and controlled.

All that's different today is tens of millions of Amercians are finding themselves ensnared at once. That's very embarrassing to political and media elites because it's a bigger number than they are used to belittling or ignoring all the time.  So they feel a little bad about it right now. But they'll get the hang of it soon enough.  Give it another month or so and the editorials calling to force people off the unemployment rolls so we can "reopen the economy" will begin.

Hotel Inertia

We know the Convention Center board has its back to the ropes right now in the public relations arena.  I mean if there was ever a time to win an argument over what should be done with their $200 million + slush fund, this is it. Today the Advocate reminds us that even the BGR Good-Government-For-Some Brahmins are on the right side of this one.

The Bureau of Governmental Research, a public policy watchdog, has called on the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center leadership to re-think plans for a $557 million hotel, saying it is an especially bad use of taxpayers' money at a time when the coronavirus pandemic is expected to blow a large hole in the city's finances

Nobody from the Convention Center has a good answer to that in this article.  Walt Leger basically says he'll get back to them.  And you can see why they might want to take a little time to get their story straight. It wasn't too long ago they were telling us that the tourism and convention business was BOOMING in New Orleans so they needed this hotel to create more capacity.  Today we learned hotel occupancy is down to about 4% in the city so that argument isn't going anywhere.  However, at the same time that they were telling us about all the big business they were doing, they were also saying the convention business is tight and competition is "cutthroat" which also meant they needed to build their own hotel.

So they'll have it either way. The hotel project has its own inertia now and even a global pandemic is making it difficult to stop.  By the time this is over, we'll start hearing it needs to be built because it's an "economic recovery" project.

The boil order decade is over

This is April. I'm not sure but I think the last boil order was January 6.  Seems like the longest we've gone in a while.  Maybe this year's cursed Carnival really did usher in a new phase of history.  Or maybe it's just not fashionable anymore.

63 yards at sea level

The biggest asterisk in the NFL record book, IMO.

The Denver Broncos' Matt Prater bested Dempsey with a 64-yarder in 2013 — 43 years after Dempsey unleashed his cannon-shot opposite Lions' defenders who had been laughing at what they believed to be an impossible attempt.

Before Prater's kick, three others had also hit 63-yarders over the years.

Prater's kick came in the thin air of Denver, 5,000-feet above sea level, as had those by two of the players who tied Dempsey's mark.

Also, we're all living under unusual circumstances now in the Time Of The COVID. But New Orleans hasn't been completely erased from the world yet. It will be someday. And it will be missed.

As a rookie in 1969, Dempsey delivered an All-Pro season but was cut by the Saints in 1971 after missing seven of eight kicks during preseason, which he attributed to falling out of shape while being treated to countless drinks and meals after his historic kick. But he rebounded and played for several other teams — the Eagles, Rams, Oilers and Bills — before retiring following the 1979 season

Anyway,  RIP, Tom. Prior to 2006, there were only a handful of moments that Saints fans were fond of claiming to have witnessed in person.  And of those, Dempsey's kick was one of the few that was a genuinely good moment and not some ironically cherished mind boggling failure.  "Only 80s kids will remember" a time when the story of this one regular season field goal was passed down to you as a sacred prize of your cultural heritage. It was the franchise's single greatest achievement all the way up until 1987.

I was pleased to find this relatively clear video of the kick on YouTube last night. The footage I grew up seeing was always a lot grainier.




Even when we include the 2009 season NFC Championship and Super Bowl  in the mix, there isn't anything in Saints history that surpasses Dempsey as a pure moment save for one.  And as fate would have it, ESPN is replaying that tomorrow night.

Failed states

Every state and municipal government is teetering on the brink of fiscal calamity right now. This is, to say the least, not an ideal circumstance to face in the midst of a public health crisis. It's also a direct result of the health crisis, of course, and should be treated as such. So far, unfortunately,  the response to this symptom is no better than any other aspect of the disastrous federal response to COVID 19.

The Republican initiated CARES Act passed in Congress last week provides massive unaccountable bailouts to large banks and corporations. It presents small businesses with a morass of SBA technicalities to tangle with. And it gives workers little more than pocket change.  There is money in there designated for the states as well. But it's already obvious that will hardly be enough to meet the costs they'll incur fighting the disease and doesn't even begin to address the crippling budget shortfalls to follow.

This much is clear already. And that's before most states even understand the strings attached to the funds they've been granted. Louisiana will receive $1.8 billion from the CARES Act. But legislators aren't yet sure how they'll be allowed to spend it.

What Louisiana budget drafters are trying to figure out is if the money coming from Washington, D.C., could displace some of the dollars the state already had slotted, thereby freeing money to use elsewhere in the state budget.

The general understanding is that federal money can be used to pay COVID-19 expenses — and not to replace state revenue losses.

Now that the legislative session has already been postponed, there's even less time to sort this out.   Louisiana faces so much uncertainty because its budget depends heavily on oil and gas production and on sales taxes. With suddenly oil down at pre-2003 prices tourism at a standstill, and consumer activity limited to bare necessity shopping, the whole of state govenrment looks like it's about to crash. 

But the one thing lawmakers should not do is panic. They may be faced with a crisis within a crisis, but they should know also so is every state. A global pandemic is threatening to cost the US hundreds of thousands of lives, potentially.  50 failed states cannot cope with the ramifications of that. And so the states cannot be allowed to fail. Louisiana legislators should assume they won't be. If the uncertainty persists over the summer, they can pass a standstill budget and muddle though to next year.

Either way Congress will have to act again. We don't know when that will be but when they do there are already plans for what that action can look like.  And shoring up state and municipal budgets will have to be a top priority.

Quote of the week

If we can get only one big win out of the post-COVID New Orleans political war, bringing the Convention Center heel would be pretty nice one to have. What's interesting about this board meeting is it sounds like there is caution (or at least embarrassment) over the fact that their big hotel project is still proceeding.  But one also gets the sense that nobody knows how to halt its momentum.

“My bigger point is, I want to make sure we’re thinking about this before we go put up $80 million, $90 million or whatever it is in site costs and other things,” Berni said. “The demand side is going to be different. It’s like post-9/11 or post-Katrina, we’re just living in a different world.”

But Convention Center President and General Manager Michael Sawaya told Berni and the rest of the board that the projects weren’t on pause, at least behind the scenes. Although the virus and related government restrictions have pushed back certain public-facing benchmarks and votes, negotiations with private developers have forged ahead.

In a meeting this week, Sawaya again reported that negotiations on the hotel deal, which were expected to be done in January, were ongoing and that the center’s attorneys were working on a counter-offer that they hoped to send to the developers this week.

At least they're sensitive to the public impression all of this makes.  The tide had been turning against the Convention Center in the months before the virus crisis. But now the emergency has caused longstanding questions about what it does with the hundreds of millions of dollars in public money it is sitting on to gain even more potency. 

And now look what's happening.  I don't think we'd have ever seen a statement like this from a sitting New Orleans City Councilmember before now.

“This whole thing reeks,” Councilwoman Kristin Palmer said in a Thursday phone interview.

“Why do we want to create something that’s going to take away from existing businesses? Because it very well could. I don’t understand what they’re trying to do. Are they trying to create this district that’s like Disney World with the Convention Center so people never have to leave?”

That, she said, would defeat the whole purpose of the Convention Center: to attract visitors (and their highly coveted out-of-town cash) and fill up existing hotels and businesses.

“These tourist leaders, these hospitality leaders are saying, ‘We need a whole other thing to attract people to this city,’ ” she said. “I call bull on that. We have so many things that we aren’t marketing that we already have. … We need to flip the script. We need to define tourism on our own level.”

I want to know more about what Kristin thinks we need to "market" differently.  It still sounds like she may think this is question of selling out smarter or something.  But we'll come back to that.  Leaving that aside, this is good to see.  It's about thirty years too late. But it's still good. 

Work lists

Delusions.  

New Orleans’ tourism-dependent economy will remain shut down until at least June, business leaders said Thursday, with no one able to say with certainty when it will fully reopen.

“Based on the fact that the governor has extended the stay in place order until April 30 and we are nowhere near our peak [in infections] in New Orleans, it will be well into May and probably June before the stay-in-place order is released and we start to go back out,” said Stephen Perry, president and CEO of New Orleans & Co., which promotes tourism. “For tourists, we’re not anticipating anything until August or September. Our industry is just watching carefully and making sure we watch every health protocol.”

Ha ha, what?  Do they mean June of next year?  Because really even that seems optimistic. But when you are Stephen Perry and your business is basically marketing, you are trained to believe that real wealth is created entirely through perception management.  In a way it's hard to blame Perry for thinking that. It's certainly made him rich, anyway.  But it's also a chronically blinkered way of understanding what's going on out there. And it's why New Orleans's tourism ownership class should be the last people anyone turns to for policy advice right now. (Too late, I know.)

What will it take to "restart the economy?" The longer we go without providing the millions of suddenly jobless Americans a means of support during the shut down, the harder it will be.  There is a plan to do this but Congress left it sitting on the shelf before they adjourned for (at least) the rest of April. In the meantime we'll just keep handing all the money we print over to large corporations and  investment banks with little or no accountability as to what they do with it.

Neither Fed nor Treasury officials would comment on the record. But the Fed quietly began to signal its discomfort with onerous conditions on Monday when it unveiled the terms of two new corporate credit programs that are likely to play a significant role in the bailout. One had no restrictions on how borrowers can use the money, while the other had extremely mild limits on stock buybacks and dividends, and only for firms that defer their loan payments.

Those two programs represent an extraordinary escalation in fighting the crisis, empowering the Fed for the first time to buy investment-grade corporate bonds and financial instruments backed by corporate bonds, with the potential to expand to even riskier corporate debt once the Treasury injects some bailout funds as a backstop.

But while the programs don’t look like the “Trump slush fund” some Democrats feared, they don’t look like the worker-first initiatives some Democrats promised. Unlike the CARE Act’s separate $360 billion small business bailout, they impose no requirements that the beneficiaries use the money to retain their employees. And unlike the 2008 bank bailout, they impose no limits on executive pay.

It's important to understand that this favoritism toward Wall Street is a deliberate policy choice. We could be doing things very differently.  The same "money printing" process the Fed employs now to float trillions of dollars out to banks could be used to put cash in the hands of ordinary Americans who very badly need it right now.  Economist Stephanie Kelton briefly explained this in a column for the Intercept last week.

Think back to 2019, when the political conversation centered around the Democratic presidential primaries and whether we could afford the kinds of ambitious spending proposals being pushed by Sanders or Warren. Neither of them admitted it at the time, but Congress could have canceled student loan debt, lowered Medicare’s eligibility age to zero, or paid to make public colleges and universities tuition-free simply by writing a bill that sent one set of instructions to the Fed. Spending or not spending money is always a political choice. 

That’s not to say that Congress can authorize multitrillion-dollar spending bills left and right without ever building in offsets to subtract dollars out of the economy. There are limits.

But the limits aren’t financial. Uncle Sam can’t run out of dollars. The U.S. government is the issuer of our currency — the U.S. dollar — which means that, unlike Greece, it can never find itself in a situation in which it has bills coming due that it can’t afford to pay. Remember, Greece gave up its sovereign currency — the drachma — and started borrowing in what is effectively a foreign currency — the euro — when it joined the Economic and Monetary Union in 2001. That’s why it (and other) countries in the eurozone experienced a debt crisis and countries like Japan, the U.K. and the U.S. did not. 

So what are the limits for a currency-issuing government like the United States? The answer is inflation. The government can’t run out of money, but it can run out of things to buy (including labor). We are constrained by our real resources — i.e. our technical know-how and the available supply of workers, factories, machines, raw materials, and so on. As long as the economy isn’t already operating at full capacity, then it is reasonable for Congress to send just one set of instructions to the Fed.

This is the point that gives lie to every conservative and neoliberal trope about "how you pay for it." What we're really bounded by is how much the economy can produce and for whom. What Kelton is saying there is we can keep printing money until we produce enough stuff to match it. The money gun is real. It's just that the choices we make about where to target it are meant to prop up the status quo rather than benefit most Americans.

Instead the biggest cash infusion into the economy will support destructive activities.  Here's how that could end up affecting the New Orleans economy in June whenever it is ready to go back to business. 

In Louisiana, four dozen hotels — ranging from some of the largest, well-known brand names in New Orleans, like the Hyatt Regency, to budget roadside inns in Lake Charles — are financed by a total of $1.1 billion of the kind of loans that can make them the potential prey for so-called vulture investors, who specialize in targeting businesses during troubled times.

The loans, called commercial mortgage-backed securities, or CMBS, differ from traditional bank mortgages in that they are pooled together, converted into bonds and sold to investors, such as hedge funds or pension managers.

That means that instead of dealing with a traditional bank when there are payment problems, hotel owners with these loans must answer to "special servicers" who represent only the interest of the bond investors.

What this means is several New Orleans hotels could find themselves vulnerable to private equity firms who specialize in carving up companies with financial vulnerability, selling off their assets, and putting their employees out of work. It's similar to what happened to Bayou Steel last year. The result is more workers are left to fend for themselves.

No worries, though. Here comes Bill Cassidy to help. In this Wall Street Journal op-ed Cassidy (along with Christopher Mores) plans to get everyone back to work sooner than later by putting them on a list.

To restart the economy, the government needs to set up coronavirus-immunity registries. At the same time, widespread testing is necessary to document immunity in those who haven’t fallen sick. A recent report from China found that 100% of patients tested two weeks after symptoms cleared had antibodies for the coronavirus. Recovering from a known coronavirus infection or having a positive antibody test is likely to indicate immunity lasting for at least some time. Those who so demonstrate that they are immune can be allowed to return to work. The whole community is freer when herd immunity is established.

Dr. Cassidy is well aware that the science on "herd immunity" to COVID 19 still has a long way to go. One "recent study from China" doesn't get you there. "Immunity lasting for at least some time" is vague, also. At this point we still don't know how long any acquired immunity lasts.  But the "allowed to return to work" is the real kicker. What he means is "compelled."

And that is what all of these policy choices taken together add up to. 10 million newly unemployed Americans' lives are meant to be kept as precarious as possible so that there will be plenty of compliant labor available when we get "back to business." We run the big money printer for Wall Street firms. We attach labyrinthine thickets of red tape to small business loans. And we give working people $1200 maybe 5 months from now.  But, hey, at least we'll have a list of who is "allowed" to work. That's real progress.

Willful

The long awaited OSHA report on the Hard Rock collapse is now public.  Citations are issued to 10 different companies involved in the work which gives an idea of the systemic nature of the problem. One would think such comprehensive negligence would implicate the developer and general contractor.  But thanks to the acrobatic legalese of construction projects, they may or may not be held directly liable.

Anyway according to this article, OSHA points its most emphatic finger at Heaslip Engineering.

The OSHA citations include a "willful" violation filed against Heaslip for including steel connections that were "inadequately designed, reviewed or approved, affecting the structural integrity of the building." OSHA defines a willful violation as one in which "the employer either knowingly failed to comply with a legal requirement (purposeful disregard) or acted with plain indifference to employee safety."

Because I'm sure people are wondering, state dept of ethics filings show Heaslip Engineering and its owner James Heaslip have made campaign contributions to John Bel Edwards, Billy Nungesser, Joe Lopinto, Scott Walker, and John Young.  That's statewide office holders and some Jefferson Parish people.  I didn't see any contributions to New Orleans office holders BUT keep in mind this is just me doing a quick and dirty search. Also they do contribute to the New Orleans Home Builders Association which is a catch all construction PAC that spreads money around to everybody.

Also, in 2019, Heaslip was recognized by City Business for professional contributions to "Excellence in Construction and Real Estate" which is nice.

10 million non-essential workers

Congratulations to everyone on the new opportunity.

A staggering 6.6 million people applied for unemployment benefits last week as the coronavirus outbreak continued to ravage nearly every corner of the American economy, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

The speed and scale of the job losses is without precedent. In just two weeks, the pandemic has left nearly 10 million Americans out of work, more than in the worst months of the last recession. Until last month, the worst week for unemployment filings was 695,000 in 1982.

There is a line of thought that suggests, since that's 10 million people who are about to find out just how shitty the "social safety net" really is, that maybe this will be a moment when we re-think the way we treat one another in this country.

Don't count on that, though.  It might surprise some to find out how fast the political narrative gets to, "Why can't these 10 million people looking for handouts just learn to code?"  It will come quick.  That's what this whole fight was about.  Republicans aren't going to budge on any of this stuff. They're getting ready to fight "World War IV" over it. 

Stephen Moore, a former Trump senior adviser now with the conservative pro-business Committee to Unleash Prosperity, said he envisioned major problems for Congress in reaching an agreement. He said that while the economy will likely need another large cash infusion to recover, Democrats pushing more spending will clash with Republicans eager to use tax cuts instead, such as suspending employers’ payroll tax like Trump has proposed.

“This will be World War IV,” he said. This would be Congress’ fourth bill addressing the virus and the collapsing economy.

The casualties are already sky high.

The day the rent stood still

Well here we are at the first turn of a new month in the Time Of The Covid. Rent is due. How many are able to pay?  Even after three emergency acts of Congress and a few local declarations meant to protect renters, the answer is probably not as many as you may think. The emergency net we've thrown up has many holes.

The recently passed federal stimulus "CARES" act includes a ban on evictions and late fees that extends only until the end of July. After that, there's nothing to stop anyone being told to pay back rent or else. On top of that, the federal ban only applies to properties receiving federally backed mortgages or government subsidies.  If your landlord owns the building outright, you are on your own.  For the time being, renters in New Orleans are protected by a temporary postponement of eviction hearings in the City Courts until April 24.  The Governor has also suspended evictions statewide until April 13. Both of those dates will likely be extended but probably not for very long.

In the meantime, a lot of people are still being evicted through extra-legal means. Landlords are either sending out threatening notices or just physically locking tenants out of buildings.  If this is happening to you, by the way, you may try contacting Southeast Louisiana Legal Services, the Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center, or the City Office of Community Development. Beyond that, though, homeowners and renters facing foreclosure or eviction have only inadequate protections which may or may not be extended on a month to month basis.

The only way to provide a more reliable form of relief is for Congress to step back in with a "Phase IV" stimulus bill. The previous efforts have done nothing to provide Americans with the certainty they will need to make it through the 12-18 months before we expect a COVID vaccine could be available. Only the federal government can do this. That's where the big money gun is. We just haven't fired it in the right direction yet.

As long as no one is sure when they'll be able to work, people are going to need an income. The plan to get it to them already exists. We just need to make it happen.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), for example, proposed giving everyone $2,000 on prepaid debit cards, then $1,000 per month until a year after the public health emergency subsides. Recurring payments had been a Democratic priority the party was unable to achieve in the bill that passed last week.

Unfortunately the designs for this and other necessary expanded safety net spending have become mired in the latest iteration of the perpetually doomed "Infrastructure Week" package. We don't have time to wait, though.

Right now state and local governments are expected to expand services and maintain staffing levels while tax revenues plummet. they're going to need emergency funding.  Louisiana will get $1.8 billion from the CARES Act. We're all but certain that won't be enough.  The City of New Orleans expects to find itself with a $100 million budget deficit by the end of the year. Of the state's $1.8 billion, how much will be available to address the city's needs?  Right now it isn't clear if the city is guaranteed any of it.

The centerpiece of the state aid is the $150 billion Coronavirus Relief Fund, which state, tribal, and local governments can use this year to meet costs connected to the virus. Each state will receive at least $1.25 billion — though the District of Columbia will only receive about $500 million — while the most populous states (California and Texas) will receive over $10 billion each, we estimate.  In most states, a portion of the funding will go to local governments serving populations over 500,000. Tribal governments will receive $8 billion.

New Orleans's current population is probably not even 400,000 (fill out your Census form, by the way) so it's very likely we're all at the mercy of the state government. Whenever the legislature manages to reconvene, we'll talk about that then.

But hey do you know who does have $100 million just sitting around right now?  That's right. It's our friends at the Convention Center. The times being what they are right now, though, you can't just have a stash like that doing nothing without somebody taking notice.

A coalition of 21 local unions, advocacy organizations and other groups are calling on the Ernest N. Morial New Orleans Convention Center to release $100 million out of its unrestricted cash reserves to support hospitality industry workers who are out of work due to the coronavirus crisis.

The Convention Center has recently reported somewhere between $185 million and $215 million in unrestricted reserves, which it has accumulated through the collection of locally generated hotel, food and beverage taxes. In 2018 and 2019, those collections exceeded $65 million.

Convention Center officials did not respond to requests for comment for this story, including questions about the current value of its reserves.

Ha ha I'm sure they didn't.  Hell they just spent all of last year fighting with (well, okay more like doing a Kabuki play with) the mayor over whether or not this particular pile of money ought to be paying for city infrastructure repairs. Thanks to Walt Leger's work in the legislature, they got to hang onto it after all.  Guess what Walt Leger does now.

Accompanying the report on the rapid deterioration in the Convention Center's business outlook, on Tuesday board president Melvin Rodrigue said he would be stepping down from the position he has held since 2008.

Rodrigue, president and chief executive of Galatoire's, was recently elected as chair of the National Restaurant Association, a powerful lobbying group that has been pushing for relief measures for its hard-hit members. He has been in talks with the governor since late last year about a successor, he said Tuesday.

He will be replaced by Walt Leger III, a former state representative and the current general counsel for New Orleans & Co.

So is Walt going to turn around now and just give away all the money he earned his current job working so hard to secure?  Doesn't seem like it. But if service workers are still out of work, and rent keeps coming due month after month, and if no one in D.C. has fired off the money gun, then relief has to come from somewhere.  And seeing as how that $100 - $200 million was gathered off the backs of the very workers asking for it now, well, it looks like they've probably got dibs.

A safety net in name only

Who could have predicted anybody would ever actually need this?  Anybody who counts, obviously. I mean there are scores of people we're used to treating like garbage every day. Not you.  But, wait, what if that was suddenly you? What then?

The stimulus bill is providing $600 per week through July 31 to both salaried and independent workers who are jobless — an amount that dwarfs the maximum state payment of $247 per week. But they have to complete an application successfully for unemployment benefits to the Louisiana Workforce Commission to be eligible for the federal aid.

Ava Dejoie, the commission’s secretary, acknowledged the ongoing problems faced by applicants, saying the flood of jobless people was beyond anyone’s expectations.

“No one was prepared for this,” Dejoie said in an interview. “The systems were not built for this amount of capacity because this was the unthinkable.”

"No one was prepared" for the day when a lot of unemployed people would need sign up for unemployment.  Also we never considered that benefits should actually be sufficient sustain anyone. Who would have thought the social safety net would actually have to keep people safe? As it is we only have capacity to do that until August.  Assuming the website is working by then.

Yes, the COVID crisis is a large event but, really, this should never happen. Still, many Louisianians have been struggling with insufficient benefits dispensed through a clunky website for years without anyone taking enough notice to care. We'd love to say that's going to change after this. But we know it probably won't.  These systems exist specifically because they keep peoples' lives precarious and workers compliant. Reversing that is going to be a heavy political lift.