flensr

That's nonsense and you know it. The govt took that money from you as taxes, and they're just giving some back.

Not only that, the stimulus checks will be accounted for in your next tax return so it's really a loan against your next tax return.

Nothing morally questionable about taking the stimulus check. You ALREADY paid for it. Not only that (again), your taxes paid for the stimulus checks received by everyone who has an effective tax rate of zero.

That political cartoon is stupid. Not only (again) is it stupid, it's intentionally misleading and "woke" style fake news. That dude in the truck is just getting back some of the taxes he already paid, which actually fits in quite nicely with all the sentiments expressed in the bumper stickers.

ClncClarence

This statement is false and demonstrates a lack of understanding of how the Economic Impact payments work. The stimulus checks were/will be advances on a TAX CREDIT. A credit means your tax liability is reduced dollar-for-dollar. In no way is this a ‘loan’ against anything.

EngineOut

The first one is non-taxable, the next one WILL be non-taxable as well.

Grumpyaviator

I’m not sure what you’re trying to say.

flensr

So, an "advance" is not a "loan"? Or are you just quibbling and the attempt to cancel the discussion is simply how you express your presence in the forum?

It sounds like we said the same thing but with different words, plus a little cancel effort on your part because you had a problem with the words I used to explain the same idea.

flensr

EXTO is easier to explain once you realize that once hired, pilot employee costs are pretty much a fixed expense over the duration of the pilot's career. It's *almost* a sunk cost. Not quite because there are a lot of ways a pilot can quit, get disabled, or otherwise stop getting paid. But it's pretty damn close to a sunk cost as it's a known expense that can't be un-done short of a furlough or termination of employment in accordance with the contract.

That means that EXTO and ETO are nothing more than a voluntary donation of half (or more) of that expense back to the company. The employees *could* demand full contractually guaranteed compensation and then "sit around at work", but instead an EXTO or ETO volunteer has accepted a huge pay cut to "sit around at home". It's not welfare, and short of furloughs it's the only way to nibble away at that fixed expense represented by the contract employee groups. In my opinion pilots get targeted out of this for 2 primary reasons. The first is a lack of understanding of how contract employee labor expenses are FIXED, and the second is frankly nothing more than jealousy over the payscale.

If you can get over those 2 misconceptions and sources of angst, it's pretty clear the ETO and EXTO folks are doing everyone a favor by voluntarily taking less than half of what they're contractually obligated to receive no matter what the govt does with any covid relief bill. The covid relief bill is nothing more and nothing less than another wealth redistribution scheme in response to both the real and perceived needs of the nation in a time of crisis. As with every other wealth redistribution bill in history, politics, lobbying, and re-election considerations are at least as important to the process as any actual national interest. If you don't like that, make sure you vote.

ClncClarence

A loan needs to be paid back. What part of these stimulus checks needs to be paid back?

THEKERNALKLINK

I woke up at 5am today. Their was livestock to rotate from pasture to pasture, cows to milk, newborns to check on and nurture, customer's to take care of, planning to do, in the end, I competed the work day at the farm at 6pm, after dark, in an ice storm, after making sure 1500 head of livestock found their way to shelter and dryness. During planting and harvest season, your day ends at midnight.

Admittingly, I'm a throw back, not many farm this way. They duocrop, lose money and take govt bail outs. My business model is totally different, I actually make money, and quite franlkly, I take every dime I can squeeze out of the govt too, but I earn it, and I reinvest it.

Most of what I do is an investment that will pay off 100 years down the road, long after my wife and I are gone, yet we do it, because it is our legacy that matters to us.

I get ya, a lot of farmers are the biggest slobs in the world, and they SHOULD fail, but they are only doing what their GREAT grandparents were told to do by the government, otherwise they would not get any of the needed financing to operate their enterprise. But their are a few like us, who thanks to some time in government service (military) and a couple of decades of having the best part time job in the world (airline pilot) in my case), we're our own banker so to speak, and we do it right, we work our butts off, leave the land better than we found it, and conduct business in a way that nurtures and improves the environment.

at6d

Fifteen hundred head isn’t a small herd! That needs some land. Got winter wheat going?

Mozam

You are out to lunch .