Playing out this scenario:

Will missing payrolls result in layoffs/resignations? Thus, increasing unemployment rate that the FED desires. If contagion doesn’t spread outside of tech/startup, does the government have any incentive to intervene? Maybe this is not too big to fail.

A sale seems like the most likely scenario out of this liquidity problem (insolvency). It’ll be dirt cheap and has to make sense to its buyer.

edit: Even with recent downturn in tech, there is still sizable value in having tech as banking clients.

Employers are legally on the hook for payroll so what will happen is management/stock holders will foot the bill.

Management and shareholders would not be personally on the hook for missed payroll in the event of insolvency.

If all the cash evaporated from my company's account, we were forced to declare bankruptcy, that's pretty much game over. The employees would be among other creditors figuring out their turn to pick over the remains. The employees may end up near the top of the list, but they wouldn't get to hold the C-Suite or shareholders accountable on a personal level.

They're contractually obligated to pay their employees, but that contractual obligation rolls up to the company level, not the people who run or own it.

I don't which other states may do this, but in Cali Labor Code Section 558.1 - company managers and owners are personally liable for missed wages. It is a codified approach to piercing the corporate veil. I learned this well when we had a single digit bank account and were waiting on funding to get wired in as payroll was coming due.

Ahh I wasn't aware of this - wow. Thanks for informing me. Can't imagine the stress some of these depositors must be under with that added personal liability on top.

Geez, lesson learned don't be a manager.

I think the implication is that companies won't have enough cash on hand to make payroll in future periods, so will layoff staff to cut payroll expensess.

And finally, if management/stock holders cannot/evades paying it out, it's tax payers who end up footing the bill.

Supposedly these jobs are the “good” jobs to still have around no matter what because, again, supposedely, they create innovation, which innovation then creates an increase in productivity (among other things), which increase in productivity has been one of the Holy Grails of mainstream economics for the last half century (with the FED being a pillar of said mainstream economics).

So, in that light, losing these jobs would be like throwing away the kid with the bathwater.

I personally don’t agree with all the premises and conclusions I’ve enumerated above, but imo that’s how a mainstream economist (like one working for the FED right now) is most likely to view things.

If you miss payroll the employees are under no legal obligation to continue laboring for you and the clock for resignations starts ticking. Many will not bother with a formal resignation because it's not clear the company still exists in any meaningful way.

I've also worked at both startups and large companies where problems with the bank or payroll software delayed payroll a day. In those situations there's typically overcommunication about the steps being done to get it resolved ASAP so employees don't walk out.

Rising interest rates is what’s different this time around

rising interest rates, and an economy that is beginning to falter.

The doomsayers have shifted from "we've been in a recession for six months, they just changed the definition of a recession" to "an economy that is beginning to falter."

I'll take that as a sign that the economy remains robust.

Really? That seems bold.

They quite literally changed the definition of a recession. Just because it's not a historically accurate recession does not mean we are not in, nor that are not heading into, one.

ZIRP is dead, there's no indication interest rates will go down any time soon, CPI indicates food costs are not moving, energy is still expensive, layoffs are picking up steam, housing is at it's most unaffordable time in history, etc.

You look at the gestalt sitting in front of you and you say "the economy remains robust". Lord, I wish I had your naivity^W^W^W^W^W^W^W optimism. I lived through the GFC and suffered the consequences of hedonistic money policy. History may not repeat but it certainly rhymes and all of this is starting to smell very familiar to me. I'm not in possession of a crystal ball but as it stands there is still too much money in the economy. The VAST majority of stock value since the GFC has been from stock buyback programs and not bottom line increases. That alone should tell you the possible origin of the next disaster.

Based on what?

Falter or maybe 're-balance' --> Look at all the thousands of layoffs in tech, the price of real-estate at all sectors, interest rates, savings-account rates of the population, homeless, unemployed, under-employed etc.

There are a fuck-ton of factors that all have not-so-rosey outlooks.

Its amazing we dont have an actual game "sim America" and you get to fiddle with all the various economic levers in our tax code and see the output based on real data coming from various sources in the economic space (like farm, military, foreign subsidies, etc)

One that takes in the budget proposal from .gov and lets you fiddle with the model and such and crowdsource the best model outcomes through millions of game players - rewarded kind of like the lottery - everyone pays $1 a month to come up with the best model - its run through many simulations and the best model wins a bunch of cash. and then, wait for it, chatGPT writes an actual budget bill to be voted on.

Citation needed.

How about bank failures? As in multiple banks have now failed.

The bank failures (SI, SBNY, SIVB) were tied to stuff that grew 300% in 2 years (speculative VC crap, crypto)

It's bad, but likely still a contained collapse (hopefully!)

It doesn’t work like that, these banks didn’t fail because of exposure to particular industries. They failed to manage their IR risk just the same as every other American bank. Now they will all be in for some serious pain. In 2021 it would have been considered fringe economic theory for rates to hit 5%. Most economists would have told you it was more likely to be at -1% now.

Per provided link https://www.usds.gov/apply: "During the COVID-19 pandemic, most people at USDS are working remotely from many locations across the country. During normal times, we ask that you make Washington, D.C. or the surrounding area your base during the work week."

So remote is pretty deceptive

Agreed. If this was a truly remote position permanently, I'd apply right now and take a pay cut. I'm at the point in my career where social impact at this scale would be a higher priority than pay for me. But remote is the highest.

There are also government contractors who often pair with USDS doing this kind of work! Ad Hoc (my employer), Nava, Civic Actions, etc. are all part of a new generation of companies with related missions trying to bring modern software practices into the US government. While USDS is often on the inside cutting through bureaucracy, the contractors are often doing most of the technical build and implementation.

FWIW places like 18F are frequently hiring engineers, product people, and designers, the pay is similar, the work is related, and they are 100% remote.

Per provided link https://www.usds.gov/apply: "Salaries in government change every year. For 2023, you may be paid up to $183,500 depending on where you are located in the United States."

The federal government pays pretty well for scientists and engineers.

I've got a few friends at JPL and they are paid around that.

I was a researcher under UC Regents many years ago, run by the state of California. That pay, however, was terrible. When I left for private industry I asked for double what I had been making and they considered me a bargain.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the pay can also be considerably higher if you work at a federally funded research lab but are not a direct federal employee. Employee of an implementing contractor company. Such as various positions at Hanford, Idaho National Lab, Los Alamos, Brookhaven, Argonne, Sandia, Livermore, etc.

This is definitely true. Most employees at national labs are not paid according to the GS schedule.

They are also not federal employees.

they should hook up military discounts

Eeeh, not really, no it doesn't lol.

Not compared to what private companies could be paying them.

There are various approached you could take; CSS transition/animation, d3,...

Here is a quick dirty example of shuffling using CSS transition [1] on the left offset. https://jsfiddle.net/h2urfsjb/

It puts each character of a word in its own absolutely positioned span tag and maps its left offset.

[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/CSS_Transit...

"American culture encourages the process of failure, unlike the cultures of Europe and Asia where failure is met with stigma and embarrassment. America’s specialty is to take these small risks for the rest of the world, which explains this country’s disproportionate share in innovations." - Nassim Taleb, The Black Swan

We use Echo/Alexa to play music, games, set timers/reminders, query for information. We get annoyed with up-selling and ads when issuing commands. The proliferation of fake reviews/products on Amazon has eroded any confidence in ordering anything via a voice command. It is a lazy, shallow and ineffective path to potential revenue. It lacks vision and creativity. There are missed opportunities in creating more sophisticated multi-command workflows. Ones that do not involve peddling what Amazon is already selling.

What problems should a sophisticated home assistant solve? It should curate and offer SOLICITED services; find me washer dryer, fridge, plumber, landscaper, house/pet sitter, house cleaner, mechanic... It should present these to me visually to choose from. It should remember and be ready to automate any subsequent request for the same service. This could be done via integrating with reputable third-party providers like Angie's list, thumbtack, google flights, aggregators... Alternatively, Amazon should build reputable service provider network itself. People need goods and services. Provide a path to solicit, opt-in to targeted curated offerings/ads. As important, provide the ability to opt-out when no longer necessary. Unsolicited ads are often inaccurate, invasive and damaging noise. Earned reputation and trust is gold.

It’d be great if modern society could make smaller vehicles for personal use. Average number of occupants on the road has to below 2.0, seems terribly inefficient. The industries and costs associated w car ownership would have to adjust too for this too happen. Legislation is also necessary to deal with mutually destructive nature of not wanting to be on the same roads as larger fortified vehicles; i.e. lanes/roads dedicated to smaller personal vehicles. Above all, as a society, we have to start giving a damn about environmental destruction. Rethink the status quo, rethink urban planning, rethink overuse of plastics, rethink leaf blowing...

Like motorcycles?

I really want something like a Gogoro stateside. Sadly nice electric scooters don't seem to be a thing here.

What about GM’s role in benefiting from this fraud? By forming a partnership with this fraudulent entity:

1. GM put up no cash but received an 11% stake in Nikola (worth over $1 billion) .

2. Nikola will pay GM $700 million to manufacture up to 50,000 Badger electric pickup trucks (and a future fuel-cell version), production that will help GM achieve economies of scale.

3. GM keeps 80% of the regulatory emissions credits from sales of the Badger and can bid on the sale of the remaining credits — helpful in offsetting GM's continued sales of gasoline-powered trucks and SUVs.

4. GM will also supply the fuel cell systems to Nikola's future big semi-trucks.

Whether GM was part of the fraud from the get go, or happened to stumble upon it and willingly participated in it remains to be determined by SEC and DoJ. Given the current times, I would not be surprised the administration letting GM, an American company, keep its loot.

Nevertheless, this seems like a smart fraudulent roundabout way for a flailing company to secure public market funding, subsidies and business without the burden of its own brand or financials. Will this become a new blueprint in crony capitalism should authorities fail in prosecuting and unwinding this fraud?

Hindsight bias.