OT: Other LA Sports: Dodgers, Angels, Lakers, Clippers, Rams, USC, UCLA, Fantasy, MMA etc #2

[KINGS17]

Accountants saw an opportunity and they qualified. Everyone is applying for it. Only those getting criticized on social media are returning the money.

Congress really f'd this up by allowing business with adequate capital and credit lines to apply, or did they?

Congress loves giving free money to businesses which are capable of sending in campaign contributions.

 

[kingsholygrail]

Congress really f'd this up by allowing business with adequate capital and credit lines to apply, or did they?

Congress loves giving free money to businesses which are capable of sending in campaign contributions.

That's the nature of government. It's hardly ever efficient. Just a big blank check and it didn't even do the job it was designed to do which was help the small businesses. But I'm getting dangerously close to going off topic here. haha

 

[Bandit]

Yeah the real problem is allowing big businesses to apply in the first place. Not sure why it’s so hard to limit it to businesses with less than X revenue, but here we are.

 

[BigKing]

I've been putting in 12-13 hours a day since the first Monday following the initial announcement of the PPP. I'm both a relationship manager and an underwriter for a very small bank. We've done an amazing job with a small staff. If our amount of loans funded compared to our asset size was compared to Chase, it would be like Chase funding a trillion dollars worth. I am completely wiped and the nightmare is going to start again in a couple of months when everyone comes back for their forgiveness and we have to underwrite that.

Anyways, the point of the program isn't really to help small businesses but rather to keep people off unemployment for the next two months under the belief that we will be opened up by then. To get forgiveness, you have to spend at least 75% of the loan proceeds on payroll. So these big time companies that can "afford" to weather the storm still might not continue to pay its workers to not work: they will make a business decision to cut payroll expenses. Now, if the government says they will cover your payroll and you qualify, of course these businesses are going to apply and then make the choice to keep employees on the payroll. A restaurant group could have thousands of employees that will be kept on the payroll via proceeds from the PPP loan whereas Mom & Pop who didn't get the loan only have three employees. Even then, Mom and Pop might take the proceeds and not rehire or keep people on the payroll if there is no work for them to do. It is the Payroll Protection Program not the "here is money for you to pay suppliers etc." Ethically, I get it but the point of the program is to save as many paychecks as possible. There is a separate SBA loan program out there that is a 15-30 year loan without restrictions on what you use it for. It is not forgiven like the PPP but it is long term and at a lower interest rate. That's more what many of these small businesses need but everyone is caught up in the "free money" aspect of it and don't know what they are doing except for they want that free money and they know it dries up fast. There are going to be a lot of bummed out borrowers when it comes time to get the loan forgiven and they don't get as much forgiven as they thought they would.

There are people declining to get rehired because they actually make more money staying on unemployment. The whole thing is a mess and the banks are taking the most heat because they are an easy target but, really, the government and the SBA have been woefully inadequate and are essentially using the banks as a sweat shop to do their work for them while providing little guidance. We still don't know exactly how the forgiveness part is going to work but we have borrowers with loan proceeds in their account wanting to know how to get the most forigveness possible since their clock has started ticking.

 

[KINGS17]

I've been putting in 12-13 hours a day since the first Monday following the initial announcement of the PPP. I'm both a relationship manager and an underwriter for a very small bank. We've done an amazing job with a small staff. If our amount of loans funded compared to our asset size was compared to Chase, it would be like Chase funding a trillion dollars worth. I am completely wiped and the nightmare is going to start again in a couple of months when everyone comes back for their forgiveness and we have to underwrite that.

Anyways, the point of the program isn't really to help small businesses but rather to keep people off unemployment for the next two months under the belief that we will be opened up by then. To get forgiveness, you have to spend at least 75% of the loan proceeds on payroll. So these big time companies that can "afford" to weather the storm still might not continue to pay its workers to not work: they will make a business decision to cut payroll expenses. Now, if the government says they will cover your payroll and you qualify, of course these businesses are going to apply and then make the choice to keep employees on the payroll. A restaurant group could have thousands of employees that will be kept on the payroll via proceeds from the PPP loan whereas Mom & Pop who didn't get the loan only have three employees. Even then, Mom and Pop might take the proceeds and not rehire or keep people on the payroll if there is no work for them to do. It is the Payroll Protection Program not the "here is money for you to pay suppliers etc." Ethically, I get it but the point of the program is to save as many paychecks as possible. There is a separate SBA loan program out there that is a 15-30 year loan without restrictions on what you use it for. It is not forgiven like the PPP but it is long term and at a lower interest rate. That's more what many of these small businesses need but everyone is caught up in the "free money" aspect of it and don't know what they are doing except for they want that free money and they know it dries up fast. There are going to be a lot of bummed out borrowers when it comes time to get the loan forgiven and they don't get as much forgiven as they thought they would.

There are people declining to get rehired because they actually make more money staying on unemployment. The whole thing is a mess and the banks are taking the most heat because they are an easy target but, really, the government and the SBA have been woefully inadequate and are essentially using the banks as a sweat shop to do their work for them while providing little guidance. We still don't know exactly how the forgiveness part is going to work but we have borrowers with loan proceeds in their account wanting to know how to get the most forigveness possible since their clock has started ticking.

PPP was originally advertised with an emphasis on small businesses. Those businesses without adequate capital or lines of credit to keep paying their employees. The idea was for small businesses to be able to remain viable by paying their rent and their employees until business returns to normal levels.

Major corporations were supposed to accept the short term pain, but bottom line is they refused to do so.

 

[HeadInjury]

It's amazing that the Lakers, as profitable as they are, would seek a government bailout. Something tells me Jerry Buss would not have let that happen.

 

[Bandit]

The rich always try to grab all they can, little guy be damned, and if they get caught they just say “my bad, I was just working within the system”.

 

[BigKing]

PPP was originally advertised with an emphasis on small businesses. Those businesses without adequate capital or lines of credit to keep paying their employees. The idea was for small businesses to be able to remain viable by paying their rent and their employees until business returns to normal levels.

Major corporations were supposed to accept the short term pain, but bottom line is they refused to do so.

Of course: they usually won't. That being said, if a company is going to lay off 1,000 employees since they don't want to accept the short term pain or a small business with four employees will fail, which scenario would the government prefer? On TV, they would say they want to save that small business but, in reality, they care more about 1,000 people continuing to be paid. We all know politicians lie: all of them. They can advertise what this loan is for to look good but it is really designed to try to keep people off of unemployment since the forgiveness is based on maintaining payroll levels equal to those pre-virus. The government would rather forgive eight weeks of payroll v. people staying on unemployment for a much longer period.

The government also decided to use for-profit entities as the means of providing the money. Yes, the government is providing the Banks with a loan fee based on the size of the loan but there are no interest payments for six months and any portion of the loan that is not forgiven becomes a two year loan at 1%. How much capital does a Bank want to risk being out at a 1% return for two years before factoring in cost of funds etc.?

I've seen the government not honor SBA guarantees in the past so the idea that banks should just drop billions of dollars of no collateral/no personal guaranty loans based on very little guidance from the SBA is crazy. The SBA--like most government agencies--is not built for speed and they were woefully unprepared for the enormity of this program but you can't blame them: it was signed into law on a Friday and they were supposed to be ready to accept and approve $350B in loan applications within one week. As for the banks prioritizing larger clients well, again, these are loans with no collateral and no personal guarantees and the SBA "guaranty" is anything but so of course the stronger clients are prioritized because there is less risk.

The EIDL SBA program is really the product for most small businesses but it got little fanfare since the supposed total forgiveness of the PPP loan seemed better since it was pushed as free money. EIDL offered rates at 4% over 15-30 years plus a $1K grant--per employee--up to $10K that didn't have to be paid back. That program was funded directly by the SBA and is the better choice for weathering the storm v. PPP that is primarily designed to keep people on payroll even if there is no work for them to do. Of course, the EIDL funds evaporated quickly as well and took much longer than the SBA said as far as getting funds was concerned.

Anyways, my employer is a very small bank that has handled this entire process by hand: every app goes to an individual via e-mail. No online application portal: actual phone conversations. Even though I'm a banker--which I never thought I would be--I don't generally bang the drum for the banking industry as there are a lot of issues with it: it's why I've never worked for a large bank in my 20 year career. I'll generally be right there in line to take a dump on Wells Fargo like everyone else; however, this is the craziest thing that I've seen during those 20 years and the real fault for all of this falls on the SBA/government. They set the guidelines and want for-profit institutions to somehow just book and fund over $500B on a first-come, first-serve basis. The volume of applications is insane and the SBA is still holding banks to follow "know your customer" rules so it makes sense that existing clients are going to be prioritized. In that same vein, a for-profit institution risks losing important clients if they don't take care of their PPP request. So a for-profit, non-government entity should have its business impacted due to a government forced program placed upon them? If the government wants banks to be its funding arm of this, the banks have to get something out of it and the loan fees won't offset the future revenue losses brought about by losing top clients who leave a bank for another one since their existing bank didn't get them their PPP loan. It's been great for us since we've been able to take care of our existing clients and obtain new ones who came to us from the big banks but I get why the big banks did what they did. Ethically it doesn't look good but expecting strong business ethics from a big bank is a fool's errand.

 

[The Tikkanen]

America couldn't survive without a Shake Shack.

 

[KINGS17]

American couldn't survive without a Shake Shack.

I don't have a Shake Shack anywhere near me. Save Baker's. They are local and make decent burgers and fries.

Has business really declined at fast food restaurants? I thought the purpose was to pay people working at businesses the government determined to be non-essential? Perhaps that was a flawed concept from the very beginning. Having the government decide what is essential vs non-essential. From my perspective, I can list multiple government functions which are non-essential, yet I haven't heard much regarding the furloughing of government workers.

 

[KINGS17]

Of course: they usually won't. That being said, if a company is going to lay off 1,000 employees since they don't want to accept the short term pain or a small business with four employees will fail, which scenario would the government prefer? On TV, they would say they want to save that small business but, in reality, they care more about 1,000 people continuing to be paid. We all know politicians lie: all of them. They can advertise what this loan is for to look good but it is really designed to try to keep people off of unemployment since the forgiveness is based on maintaining payroll levels equal to those pre-virus. The government would rather forgive eight weeks of payroll v. people staying on unemployment for a much longer period.

The government also decided to use for-profit entities as the means of providing the money. Yes, the government is providing the Banks with a loan fee based on the size of the loan but there are no interest payments for six months and any portion of the loan that is not forgiven becomes a two year loan at 1%. How much capital does a Bank want to risk being out at a 1% return for two years before factoring in cost of funds etc.?

I've seen the government not honor SBA guarantees in the past so the idea that banks should just drop billions of dollars of no collateral/no personal guaranty loans based on very little guidance from the SBA is crazy. The SBA--like most government agencies--is not built for speed and they were woefully unprepared for the enormity of this program but you can't blame them: it was signed into law on a Friday and they were supposed to be ready to accept and approve $350B in loan applications within one week. As for the banks prioritizing larger clients well, again, these are loans with no collateral and no personal guarantees and the SBA "guaranty" is anything but so of course the stronger clients are prioritized because there is less risk.

The EIDL SBA program is really the product for most small businesses but it got little fanfare since the supposed total forgiveness of the PPP loan seemed better since it was pushed as free money. EIDL offered rates at 4% over 15-30 years plus a $1K grant--per employee--up to $10K that didn't have to be paid back. That program was funded directly by the SBA and is the better choice for weathering the storm v. PPP that is primarily designed to keep people on payroll even if there is no work for them to do. Of course, the EIDL funds evaporated quickly as well and took much longer than the SBA said as far as getting funds was concerned.

Anyways, my employer is a very small bank that has handled this entire process by hand: every app goes to an individual via e-mail. No online application portal: actual phone conversations. Even though I'm a banker--which I never thought I would be--I don't generally bang the drum for the banking industry as there are a lot of issues with it: it's why I've never worked for a large bank in my 20 year career. I'll generally be right there in line to take a dump on Wells Fargo like everyone else; however, this is the craziest thing that I've seen during those 20 years and the real fault for all of this falls on the SBA/government. They set the guidelines and want for-profit institutions to somehow just book and fund over $500B on a first-come, first-serve basis. The volume of applications is insane and the SBA is still holding banks to follow "know your customer" rules so it makes sense that existing clients are going to be prioritized. In that same vein, a for-profit institution risks losing important clients if they don't take care of their PPP request. So a for-profit, non-government entity should have its business impacted due to a government forced program placed upon them? If the government wants banks to be its funding arm of this, the banks have to get something out of it and the loan fees won't offset the future revenue losses brought about by losing top clients who leave a bank for another one since their existing bank didn't get them their PPP loan. It's been great for us since we've been able to take care of our existing clients and obtain new ones who came to us from the big banks but I get why the big banks did what they did. Ethically it doesn't look good but expecting strong business ethics from a big bank is a fool's errand.

I understand your point of view here, and can see your perspective. When it comes to companies with sufficient capital to weather this storm, I see them as having two choices:

A) Lay off some of their employees who then get unemployment + the $600/week kicker that goes with it.

B) Maintain full employment by taking government money, but then accept the strings that go along with it (e.g. no stock buy backs, limits on executive bonuses, etc.)

Most corporations are going to choose A), because the CEO and senior executives will want to re-inflate their stock price with buy backs. They will do this because of wrong-headed thinking has their compensation almost wholly tied to the price of the stock instead of the overall health of the company and its long-term viability. Boeing is a perfect example of this failed approach and short-term thinking.

 

[BigKing]

I understand your point of view here, and can see your perspective. When it comes to companies with sufficient capital to weather this storm, I see them as having two choices:

A) Lay off some of their employees who then get unemployment + the $600/week kicker that goes with it.

B) Maintain full employment by taking government money, but then accept the strings that go along with it (e.g. no stock buy backs, limits on executive bonuses, etc.)

Most corporations are going to choose A), because the CEO and senior executives will want to re-inflate their stock price with buy backs. They will do this because of wrong-headed thinking has their compensation almost wholly tied to the price of the stock instead of the overall health of the company and its long-term viability. Boeing is a perfect example of this failed approach and short-term thinking.

Agree that they will choose "A" but the government doesn't want that: not after amping up the unemployment benefits to a point where a large number of people will do better on unemployment. Allowing 25% of the PPP proceeds to be used on rent, utilities and mortgage interest is a "free money" kicker that is hard to pass up if you can get it: strong company or not.

Let's not kid ourselves: everyone knew big companies were going to apply for the PPP as long as they qualified for it. They'd be stupid not to. Only reason the government spoke out against it and some companies gave the money back was the bad optics of it. You'll pay my payroll for two months even though I don't need the help? Well that's two months of payroll expense in my pocket.

Using banks for the program ensured it would not be first come, first serve. Only way for that would have been for the SBA to handle all of the applications and the funding. If that was the route, nobody would be funded yet. They needed the banks for speed purposes but then there are going to be downsides. There is no perfect way to do this while emphasizing speed of funding.

I've had some clients that desperately need it and are super grateful. I have some that could weather the storm but want it because, why not, and because there is still uncertainty moving forward so it is rainy day money as well. Then I have people that I've had to say we couldn't get to it in time. It sucks. I've seen all of the faces of this. You'd like to help everyone but it is impossible.

 

[KINGS17]

Agree that they will choose "A" but the government doesn't want that: not after amping up the unemployment benefits to a point where a large number of people will do better on unemployment. Allowing 25% of the PPP proceeds to be used on rent, utilities and mortgage interest is a "free money" kicker that is hard to pass up if you can get it: strong company or not.

Let's not kid ourselves: everyone knew big companies were going to apply for the PPP as long as they qualified for it. They'd be stupid not to. Only reason the government spoke out against it and some companies gave the money back was the bad optics of it. You'll pay my payroll for two months even though I don't need the help? Well that's two months of payroll expense in my pocket.

Using banks for the program ensured it would not be first come, first serve. Only way for that would have been for the SBA to handle all of the applications and the funding. If that was the route, nobody would be funded yet. They needed the banks for speed purposes but then there are going to be downsides. There is no perfect way to do this while emphasizing speed of funding.

I've had some clients that desperately need it and are super grateful. I have some that could weather the storm but want it because, why not, and because there is still uncertainty moving forward so it is rainy day money as well. Then I have people that I've had to say we couldn't get to it in time. It sucks. I've seen all of the faces of this. You'd like to help everyone but it is impossible.

I am not suggesting this is the fault of the businesses who are eligible and apply (even though some of these high profile entities deserve some criticism), I think Congress failed yet again to write legislation to effectively combat the problem they were supposed to be solving.

One of the problems is legislation isn't written by the people we elected. It is written by consultants and lobbyists who spread cash around from K Street.

 

[Bandit]

I am not suggesting this is the fault of the businesses who are eligible and apply (even though some of these high profile entities deserve some criticism), I think Congress failed yet again to write legislation to effectively combat the problem they were supposed to be solving.

One of the problems is legislation isn't written by the people we elected. It is written by consultants and lobbyists who spread cash around from K Street.

Another problem being that the government can’t seem to get out of its own way. I imagine with how complex the law is and how wide sweeping the problems are that it’s not an easy problem to write legislation for, but government really seems to like to make it hard on themselves.

I read an article yesterday about a memo instructing the Republican Party to not back Trump but instead blame China. The content of the article aside, what I found astounding was that this “memo” was FIFTY SEVEN PAGES long. Who the f*** has time for a fifty seven page memo??? Utterly ridiculous.

 

[KINGS17]

Another problem being that the government can’t seem to get out of its own way. I imagine with how complex the law is and how wide sweeping the problems are that it’s not an easy problem to write legislation for, but government really seems to like to make it hard on themselves.

I read an article yesterday about a memo instructing the Republican Party to not back Trump but instead blame China. The content of the article aside, what I found astounding was that this “memo” was FIFTY SEVEN PAGES long. Who the f*** has time for a fifty seven page memo??? Utterly ridiculous.

Way too many omnibus bills. Things would move much more quickly through Congress if they addressed one spending issue at a time, or at least the subject of a spending bill.

 

[Bandit]

Way too many omnibus bills. Things would move much more quickly through Congress if they addressed one spending issue at a time, or at least the subject of a spending bill.

Makes way too much sense.

 

[tbrown33]

Rams went from having maybe the best uniforms in the NFL to one of the worst

 

[Bandit]

Rams went from having maybe the best uniforms in the NFL to one of the worst

Oof that's horrid.

 

[Vamos Rafa]

I think they should scrap the NBA season. If my team wins, I don't want them the get shit on and be called the Corona champs, especially for a team that would win their first title in franchise history. Ugh.

 

[KopitarFAN]

If this MLB thing was happening like a regular work stoppage, not at a time when unemployment is >20% it would be fine, but I think what Blake Snell & Trevor Bauer are saying trying to relate is just a horrible look. Not saying the players shouldn't want what they want, maybe don't be so public about because it just makes them look greedy if their is no season.

 

[KINGS17]

The Rams new uniform design didn't completely f up the helmet. That's all I have to say about that.

The Chargers absolutely killed it with their new uniform design, but I am biased as I have always been a fan of their white helmets, powder blue jerseys, and gold pants.

 

[ru4reals]

Rams went from having maybe the best uniforms in the NFL to one of the worst

These are absolute atrocious. My goodness WTF were they thinking. Well nevermind they weren't. Brutal.

 

[KINGS17]

If by some miracle fans are allowed to attend games in the Fall, I am going to be all over this one.

ASU Football: Non-conference game with UNLV scheduled for Allegiant Stadium

 

[ru4reals]

If by some miracle fans are allowed to attend games in the Fall, I am going to be all over this one.

ASU Football: Non-conference game with UNLV scheduled for Allegiant Stadium

Heard the new hotel next to the Stadium is going to be really sick.

 

[KINGS17]

Heard the new hotel next to the Stadium is going to be really sick.

View attachment 346918

Looking around my office, the hotel oddly looks much like my document shredder.