Always_Ask_Questions

common – I just googled that Lakewood Rabbonim called for various safety measures and reduced fesitivities. Are you saying that people disregarded that? I presume you simply saw people who came and did not see people who did not come. And those who came are not careful all the time, so half were already immune. Where I live, there is a pretty representative group of people from Lakewood, some recent arrivals, and while a larger number of them walking maskless is larger than in other populations, there are a lot who are complying with government and Rabbi’s orders.

MadeAliya, I am the center. Everyone on the right of me is a Nazi, everyone on the left of me – a Commie. Try using this attitude, it really works! Common is mistaking mask wearing for left-of-centre.

Seriously speaking, there are multiple dimensions in politics – economic, social, international. For example, Israeli haredi parties are on the right are on the right socially, but on the left economically. US 2-party system forces people into two large camps, which has a lot of benefits, but clarity of mind is not one of them.

A medical observation: there are several esteemed CR mebers who have enormous erudition and chesed in some aspects – some in Midrashim, others in Science, but then fall to pretty generic unsupported statements when Pres Trump’s shadow appears in the topic. We should stop worrying about long COVID and start worrying about, lo aleinu, long TDS. Refuah Shleimah.

em, not sure where your partner is holding, but right now you can go through Pesach – from Hagada to cleaning and product kashrus. Use zoom/whatsapp to review the labels, matza quality and maybe even search for missed hametz 🙂

RebE,
according to my quick test, you can cram 25K bills into a cubic ft. You can re-test at home using your stimulus funds.

I don’t usually get payoffs in egg boxes, what is the size used by meir’s generous donors?

PS shoebox dollar carrying capacity was litigated in Brooklyn District Court in 2005 during Gotti trial.

RebE: The rich do not grow the economy, if they don’t do capital investment to provide jobs.

Agreed. And, presumably, that is what they do. You are quoting someone who tries to convince you that “at this moment”, rich are not using their money productively (buybacks?!) – and thus we should take it from them and do better. I know Hashem decides who is rich, but I don’t think he delegated this to the federal government.

Either this is “partially correct” information – do we fully know where money goes – or, for some reason, investors temporarily are not investing. Maybe they feel that it is too risky or there is less incentive due to anticipated taxes, or there are less taxes in other countries. Either way, it is either a temporary rational decision, or something that can be fixed by better economic policies. For example, Obama was threatening companies that moved headquarters from US with no effect, Trump reduced corp taxes and companies came back.

MadeAliya is asking a good question – where is the boundary for risk? What does Gemora mean by “saving one life = saving the whole world”. I understand halakhic guidelines as what is seen as normal in daily activity. This is, of course, relative. There were times during human history where COVID would not be considered much comparing with damage by other illnesses and by people to each other ….

But before doing a cut-off, we need to first order threats according to their danger and describe costs of preventing them, and then apply some limits based on danger and costs. Naturally, Jewish considerations might be different from US government .. for example, there is an issue of your own decision in a famous case where you are at the wheel of a train that is going to hit 5 people, are you allowed to turn to the different track where you will hit “just” 1 person…

but, back to basics:
it seems that current COVID dangers are way over car crashes and flu. So, it is worth paying attention to before addressing flu.
what about costs – many here listed mental, learning, societal costs. Ok, so let’s list what we can do to address COVID sorting from those that are easy on people. At the same time, some might be machmir especially on themselves if they value their Yiddishkeit.

Some simple ideas, tell me whether you are doing them or are they high maintenance?
– open windows in shul and school
– not flying for vacation
– ordering delivery from the store instead of going there
– learning with your child for one day a week, or forming a small group with neighbors, instead of sending to a crowded school
– going one time less to shul, or not talking there, or not staying for kiddush

Some of this may require a small effort or even cots, but, I think, not more than shlepping to buy shmurah matza or buying an esrog mehadrin. Presumably, those who are not machmir in this, simply do not consider this a mitzvah, but just a consideration that they can entertain lightly “how about the flu”, rather than asking shailos and learning tosafos.

re: Israeli matzos. Let’s not bad mouth it.

We should not confuse actual quality and market forces. I recall a story that some Americans used to sneer at Sifrei Torah imported from Europe – it was of low quality. European view was: where else can you sell a low-quality Sefer if not in America?!

The way such bills are popular is well understood in theory: benefits are specific, while costs are diffused. One person sees $1,000 for people w/ children, great! Another – $1,000 for people w/out children, also great! Charlie is seducing us by $2B for private schools. Cool. At the same time, cost of each item is insignificant per tax-payer comparing with a visible benefit, and is also claimed to happen sometime later. This is how every avoda zara/yetzer hara works – shows you an immediate free miracle with the hidden cost later.

If someone, for some reason, wants to see his personal benefit, you can count whether you get to $6,000 per person, including children, that this bill costs. You might say, CTLawyer does not mind this bill. But then, consider whether CTLawyer could keep his money and spend on tzedokah himself.

Yt, I presume you did not do it in the South … I once left a purse on a ledge (not on Shabbat) in a building, came back 2 days later, it was still there.

Charlie, $2.7B in private school money from D-s is indeed remarkable

to compare, 2020 bill had $42B for schools,
of K-12, 70 percent went to public schools and 30 percent went to private or charter schools

here are some items in the bill, as reported by covidmoneytracker:
Expand Child Tax Credit from $2,000 to $3,000 ($3,600 for children under age 6) and make it fully refundable for one year $110 billion
Expand Earned Income Tax Credit to childless adults for one year, tripling the credit, and include those aged 19-24 and over 65. Permanently allow recipients to have more investment income and expand the EITC in territories $23 billion
[ 2 policies above – for children for childless people, basicly to anyone]

Provide grants to multi-employer pension plans and change single-employer pension funding rules $58 billion
Expand Affordable Care Act subsidies by reducing the maximum cost of insurance plans $34 billion
Increase base Medicaid match to states that newly expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act $16 billion
Allow states to expand Medicaid coverage for prisoners close to release and for pregnant and postpartum women for 5 years $9 billion [no breakdown between these 2 groups 🙂

>> you care less about those who died of Influenza

My kids scored one win when talking with a friend with a non-mask father – the other kid ventured a thought that there are more people dying from car accidents than from COVID. When they jointly checked the numbers, that kid started going to shul in a mask next week and soon even father started wearing a turtleneck where he could hide his chin.

>> people who are more religious generally vote republican.

I don’t want to start another flame war, but calling one group of observant Jews “more religious” than another is not a good form. I do agree that majority of more conservative Jews vote Republican – despite benefitting from D- redistribution policies. At the same time, more “liberal” (in American sense, not in classical liberal) observant Jews are split about 50-50 – despite benefitting from R- pro-business and pro-Israel policies.

Pose a question or a topic that is possible for both you to research in advance of a call or zoom and then compare notes.

Syag, I apologize if I misunderstood you.
We are telling you that it is not OK to have 90% of people infected (which I do not think is correct) and you seem to respond that we seem to live in small communities. I thought this is in response to my concern about your people, but it seems that it was unrelated.

charlie – first COVID bill was smaller and it was during an actual emergency. It might have been better if it were targeted, but there was no time to do that. It achieved the goal. Current bill is developed after month of careful planning and the emergency is not there. You know that and post the opposite for some reason I can not fathom.

RebE – could you point me to where is a lack of demand?
shipments of many durable good are behind due to factories not being able to fulfil the orders.

Some of the industries that are in distress – food, hospitality, education – partially restructured to deliveries, partially is healthy (literally – when people cook more at home), and I am on board with helping the rest of it.

I really do ont understand full accounting of this bill. Reports I saw try to combine items into innocent sounding categories. What do you think about $450b to states? states collected same taxes as last year. They may have higher expenses due to COVID, but they do not seem to try to change anything – they continue requiring all kind of paperwork as before, running schools under the same rules. For example, I inquired with my state senator whether they planned to increase enrollment into online public schools to compliment struggling local schools. He liked the idea, passed it on, and then sheepishly said “there is too much local opposition”.

R Sacks Z’L spoke movingly about his teacher R Nachum Rabinowitz, who in turn had a semicha from Ner Isroel and PhD in statistics. (aside: R Rabinowitz writings on use of probabilities are breath-taking).

R Sacks is a universalist, most reminding of R Shimshon Hirsh. He is able to put Torah learning in terms that can be understood – and valued – by nations of the world, and explain to Jews how Torah relates to modern life and modern philosophies, something that this Coffee Room often concerns about.

ujm, DY, I hear you. I am talking about what we do now. Lakewood changed and now serves a different function, agreed.

The question is – do we now need a place where people can learn the way R’ Kotler envisioned. Maybe we don’t. Maybe we do not understand what and why he wanted, as we are satisfied with the new American way. Maybe there are other places now that provide hat function, the way Torah centers moved from Bavel to Europe. Soliciting your opinion.

>> gedoilim have clearly pointed to … when the europeans closed the border rosh hashana time

I did not hear this dvar Toirah. Which gedolim pointed out this interesting connection?

common, reya is indeed better. That is why I am asking for your precious testimony – what did you see. You just said “power trip”, but did not specify what exactly you saw, except when you personally had a mask one, you had no problem. I don’t see there is a lot of gray area, maybe except these:

1) nose under mask, but used to support the mask so that it increases non-filtered air access
2) occasional to longer eating
3) masks made out of materials that would not be considered tzanua if worn on the leg

common, good news – if you are a female after college and before nursing home, or a male of any age, the governor will not be a threat to you!

when we look at behaviors of various celebrities, I think, we need to differentiate between those in private businesses and in public office. It is one thing to leverage your business skills or simply money (within legal limits), it is different to use power of the people and government monopoly on power and certain jobs. The latter is much bigger corruption of the society. CEOs of public companies is a case somewhat in between, and we can just hope that shareholders will do the right thing.

merG > how many egg boxes full of hundreds is a trillion dollars

and this is exactly why US does not print larger bills – to prevent cash fraud. EU has higher value bills for your convenience. Your gvir will soon hit with higher taxes and regulations. Your independent doctor already sold his business to the hospitals after Obamacare, so do not spend the tzedokah you get now in one shot.

RebE: could you define the limit for your theory that printing money makes everything grow? do you see downside at some point, or should US redistribute more?

at this point, there are narrowly defined segments of economy that are under pressure. Even many hospitality workers turned into delivery work.

Another example: states came out even on collected taxes in 2020 on average. What is then the point of giving federal money to states

follick2, so you will increase dependency of your community on welfare payments and hope that this will last?

Not exactly a direct comparison, but I see a lesson here: when a new PM Menachem Begin offered full subsidy to yeshivot, R Schach advised against taking it. His reasoning: yeshivot will come to fully rely on government funds, and when a new government comes and reduces subsidies, they will go bankrupt.

Similarly here, relying on government to support you because you are poor will keep you poor for the time being. People who could have paid your Rebbe directly will have less omney too. Then, when someone else’s money will run out, you will not be able to support yourself.