Occupations that are uniquely objectionable to Conservative Anabaptists

[mike]

Yes, in retrospect, I would have much rather have taken the "free" money (at the time, it was being described as a loan), and distributed a bonus to hard workers.

Right. That's what I'm saying.

[Ken]

I didn’t sign up for PPP because of that exact language.

In retrospect, I left a lot of money on the table… and I agree with ks here, anyone who took PPP funds had better not ever complain about much cheaper forms of welfare for poor people. PPP handouts were often in the millions, paid directly to rich people.

If you look at the PURPOSE of the PPE as stated in the legislation it was actually multi-faceted.

One purpose was certainly to keep people employed and keep businesses afloat during a once in a century pandemic emergency.

But a second purpose was to quickly inject a lot of money into the economy to jump start the overall economy. That was also why people were getting relief checks deposited into their checking accounts. So that they would go spend the money and stimulate the economy. The PPP program was really an attempt to prime the pump. Once could argue that it was your patriotic duty to get those PPP dollars and spend them.

Was that the best way to jump-start the economy? It certainly wasn't the least wasteful and most frugal way to get the job done. There was tremendous waste and fraud. But Congress knew this going in and did it anyway. Remember this was all passed in April 2020 under Trump and a Republican Senate to provide quick relief. And it did get the job done. Doing anything else would have taken years longer since it would have required the ramping up of a whole new government agency to more carefully oversee the disbursement of relief funds.

The PPP program was passed right when unemployment was hitting 14.1% as you can see below. Would this graph have looked the same without passage of the PPP program? Alternative histories are hard to write. But we do have the example of the 2008 recession which took years longer to recover from and which had a much more weak response from the government. Look at the graph below. It took 10 years to recover from the 2008 recession but less than 2 to recover from the COVID recession. Was that entirely due to PPP? Obviously not. But one could argue that it helped. And that was Congress' intent.

[ken_sylvania]

I didn’t sign up for PPP because of that exact language.

In retrospect, I left a lot of money on the table… and I agree with ks here, anyone who took PPP funds had better not ever complain about much cheaper forms of welfare for poor people. PPP handouts were often in the millions, paid directly to rich people.

If you look at the PURPOSE of the PPE as stated in the legislation it was actually multi-faceted.

One purpose was certainly to keep people employed and keep businesses afloat during a once in a century pandemic emergency.

But a second purpose was to quickly inject a lot of money into the economy to jump start the overall economy. That was also why people were getting relief checks deposited into their checking accounts. So that they would go spend the money and stimulate the economy. The PPP program was really an attempt to prime the pump. Once could argue that it was your patriotic duty to get those PPP dollars and spend them.

Was that the best way to jump-start the economy? It certainly wasn't the least wasteful and most frugal way to get the job done. There was tremendous waste and fraud. But Congress knew this going in and did it anyway. Remember this was all passed in April 2020 under Trump and a Republican Senate to provide quick relief. And it did get the job done. Doing anything else would have taken years longer since it would have required the ramping up of a whole new government agency to more carefully oversee the disbursement of relief funds.

The PPP program was passed right when unemployment was hitting 14.1% as you can see below. Would this graph have looked the same without passage of the PPP program? Alternative histories are hard to write. But we do have the example of the 2008 recession which took years longer to recover from and which had a much more weak response from the government. Look at the graph below. It took 10 years to recover from the 2008 recession but less than 2 to recover from the COVID recession. Was that entirely due to PPP? Obviously not. But one could argue that it helped. And that was Congress' intent.

Have to pity these unfortunate folks who are getting prison time and a criminal record for simply doing their patriotic duty:

Person Location Loan Amount Sentence
Joseph Cherry Virginia $200,000 51 months
Tarik Jaafar Virginia $6.6 million 12 months
Nadine Consuelo Jackson Ohio $2.5 million 24 months
Gannel Tubbs Arkansas $2 million 41 months
Dennes Garcia Florida $285,742 18 months
Fahad Shah Texas $3.3 million 31 months
David Adler Staveley Mass. $543,000 48 months
Richard Ayvazyan California $20 million+ Conspiracy 17 years
Marietta Terabelian California $20 million+ conspiracy 72 months/6 years
Artur Ayvazyan California $20 million+ conspiracy 5 years
David T. Hines Florida $3.9 million 6 years+
Andre Clark Andre Clark $7.2 million 33 months
Maurice Fayne Georgia $3.7 million 17 years
Mukund Mohan Washington $5.5 million 24 months/2 years
Matthew Jason Welch Montana $35,000 90 Days Time-Served/5 years Probation
Cindi Denton California $491,310 6 months in prison/12 months home confinement
Thomas Smith Wisconsin $1.2 million 57 months
Andrew Tenza Virginia $350,000 18 months
Manuk Grigoryan California $20+ million 6 years
Edvard Paronyan California $20+ million 30 months
Vahe Dadyan California $20+ million 1 year and a day months
Arman Hayrapetyan California $20+ million 10 months probation
Sam Fiedler Arizona $638,000 8 months
Miranda Devlin California $368,000 18 months

[Ernie]

Did conservative Anabaptist businesses take advantage of the Federal COVID PPP loan and loan forgiveness program? I don't know the answer to that question but your mentioning of COVID made me curious. And if so, were there religious objections to doing so?

The majority returned the checks to the government or through them away. Some deposited the check and then gave time or money to charity. Others used it to increase their net worth, and a some really needed the funds to deal with time off work and later inflation.

[Ken]

Have to pity these unfortunate folks who are getting prison time and a criminal record for simply doing their patriotic duty:

Person Location Loan Amount Sentence
Joseph Cherry Virginia $200,000 51 months
Tarik Jaafar Virginia $6.6 million 12 months
Nadine Consuelo Jackson Ohio $2.5 million 24 months
Gannel Tubbs Arkansas $2 million 41 months
Dennes Garcia Florida $285,742 18 months
Fahad Shah Texas $3.3 million 31 months
David Adler Staveley Mass. $543,000 48 months
Richard Ayvazyan California $20 million+ Conspiracy 17 years
Marietta Terabelian California $20 million+ conspiracy 72 months/6 years
Artur Ayvazyan California $20 million+ conspiracy 5 years
David T. Hines Florida $3.9 million 6 years+
Andre Clark Andre Clark $7.2 million 33 months
Maurice Fayne Georgia $3.7 million 17 years
Mukund Mohan Washington $5.5 million 24 months/2 years
Matthew Jason Welch Montana $35,000 90 Days Time-Served/5 years Probation
Cindi Denton California $491,310 6 months in prison/12 months home confinement
Thomas Smith Wisconsin $1.2 million 57 months
Andrew Tenza Virginia $350,000 18 months
Manuk Grigoryan California $20+ million 6 years
Edvard Paronyan California $20+ million 30 months
Vahe Dadyan California $20+ million 1 year and a day months
Arman Hayrapetyan California $20+ million 10 months probation
Sam Fiedler Arizona $638,000 8 months
Miranda Devlin California $368,000 18 months

I didn't say break the law and submit fraudulent claims. Which is what all of these people were convicted of doing.

I am just pointing out that if you were a business, the government actually wanted you to take advantage of the program and inject money into the economy. Which hundreds of thousands of businesses did.

I personally think the program was wasteful but I can also see the forest for the trees and don't have any issues with businesses who took advantage of it legally. The US economy recovered faster than any other developed economy and that enormous injection of dollars was one of the contributing factors.

[Judas Maccabeus]

Well, I was eating with some Nationwide people, one of the NMBs said he had to give up his job as a fire alarm installer. That blew my mind. Meanwhile, I am helping a 9th grader with an acceleration problem that requires square roots. His teacher apparently was not able to explain the formula or how to proceed to a solution. Boy, was I tempted to pull out my cell phone…………..

[Judas Maccabeus]

I didn’t sign up for PPP because of that exact language.

In retrospect, I left a lot of money on the table… and I agree with ks here, anyone who took PPP funds had better not ever complain about much cheaper forms of welfare for poor people. PPP handouts were often in the millions, paid directly to rich people.

If you look at the PURPOSE of the PPE as stated in the legislation it was actually multi-faceted.

One purpose was certainly to keep people employed and keep businesses afloat during a once in a century pandemic emergency.

But a second purpose was to quickly inject a lot of money into the economy to jump start the overall economy. That was also why people were getting relief checks deposited into their checking accounts. So that they would go spend the money and stimulate the economy. The PPP program was really an attempt to prime the pump. Once could argue that it was your patriotic duty to get those PPP dollars and spend them.

Was that the best way to jump-start the economy? It certainly wasn't the least wasteful and most frugal way to get the job done. There was tremendous waste and fraud. But Congress knew this going in and did it anyway. Remember this was all passed in April 2020 under Trump and a Republican Senate to provide quick relief. And it did get the job done. Doing anything else would have taken years longer since it would have required the ramping up of a whole new government agency to more carefully oversee the disbursement of relief funds.

The PPP program was passed right when unemployment was hitting 14.1% as you can see below. Would this graph have looked the same without passage of the PPP program? Alternative histories are hard to write. But we do have the example of the 2008 recession which took years longer to recover from and which had a much more weak response from the government. Look at the graph below. It took 10 years to recover from the 2008 recession but less than 2 to recover from the COVID recession. Was that entirely due to PPP? Obviously not. But one could argue that it helped. And that was Congress' intent.

Have to pity these unfortunate folks who are getting prison time and a criminal record for simply doing their patriotic duty:

Person Location Loan Amount Sentence
Joseph Cherry Virginia $200,000 51 months
Tarik Jaafar Virginia $6.6 million 12 months
Nadine Consuelo Jackson Ohio $2.5 million 24 months
Gannel Tubbs Arkansas $2 million 41 months
Dennes Garcia Florida $285,742 18 months
Fahad Shah Texas $3.3 million 31 months
David Adler Staveley Mass. $543,000 48 months
Richard Ayvazyan California $20 million+ Conspiracy 17 years
Marietta Terabelian California $20 million+ conspiracy 72 months/6 years
Artur Ayvazyan California $20 million+ conspiracy 5 years
David T. Hines Florida $3.9 million 6 years+
Andre Clark Andre Clark $7.2 million 33 months
Maurice Fayne Georgia $3.7 million 17 years
Mukund Mohan Washington $5.5 million 24 months/2 years
Matthew Jason Welch Montana $35,000 90 Days Time-Served/5 years Probation
Cindi Denton California $491,310 6 months in prison/12 months home confinement
Thomas Smith Wisconsin $1.2 million 57 months
Andrew Tenza Virginia $350,000 18 months
Manuk Grigoryan California $20+ million 6 years
Edvard Paronyan California $20+ million 30 months
Vahe Dadyan California $20+ million 1 year and a day months
Arman Hayrapetyan California $20+ million 10 months probation
Sam Fiedler Arizona $638,000 8 months
Miranda Devlin California $368,000 18 months

The police in my fair city provided the US Attorneys office with a list of people they wanted behind bars. He graciously obliged by checking them for fraudulent PPP loans. Results were startling.

Criminals do crime. That is what makes them criminals.

[Ken]

Well, I was eating with some Nationwide people, one of the NMBs said he had to give up his job as a fire alarm installer. That blew my mind. Meanwhile, I am helping a 9th grader with an acceleration problem that requires square roots. His teacher apparently was not able to explain the formula or how to proceed to a solution. Boy, was I tempted to pull out my cell phone…………..

What is wrong with being a fire alarm installer?

Were you solving for time or centripetal velocity? Those are the only acceleration formulas I recall that have squares in them. I always find it easier to re-write/manipulate the formula first to solve for the variable that you seek then plug in the numbers afterwards. Rather than plug in the numbers first and manipulate.

But yeah, square roots are no fun without a calculator. That is why old math textbooks put square root tables (along with all the trig tables) in the reference section in the back of the book. I expect you can do square roots with a slide rule as well. But that is before my time.

[Soloist]

Well, I was eating with some Nationwide people, one of the NMBs said he had to give up his job as a fire alarm installer. That blew my mind. Meanwhile, I am helping a 9th grader with an acceleration problem that requires square roots. His teacher apparently was not able to explain the formula or how to proceed to a solution. Boy, was I tempted to pull out my cell phone…………..

What is wrong with being a fire alarm installer?

Were you solving for time or centripetal velocity? Those are the only acceleration formulas I recall that have squares in them. I always find it easier to re-write/manipulate the formula first to solve for the variable that you seek then plug in the numbers afterwards. Rather than plug in the numbers first and manipulate.

But yeah, square roots are no fun without a calculator. That is why old math textbooks put square root tables (along with all the trig tables) in the reference section in the back of the book. I expect you can do square roots with a slide rule as well. But that is before my time.

Wife:I’m just guessing, but it probably has something to do with having to use the Internet to get licensed. I think that’s why some people don’t apply their own pesticides anymore.

[MaxPC]

I'd like to primarily hear from conservative Anabaptists, but others can feel free to chime with thoughts and questions.

The discussion about working as a mail carrier, notably the comment about having to deliver morally objectional material, brought up this question in my mind. Are there any other similar occupations that are uniquely objectionable to conservative Anabaptists?

I do business with a conservative Anabaptist-owned company that is a wireless internet provider in our local area. Given what the internet is, would this be objectionable to some CAs similarly to delivering morally objectionable mail or packages?

I assume defense contracting would definitely be on this list, but how far is that taken? Would manufacturing bolts for a company that provides them to a defense contractor be the same? Would we manufacture custom furniture for an office in the Congress? What about providing goods and services to prisons?

Excellent topic, Mike. Another scenario: a Hutterite colony in Canada manufactures fire trucks. Fire fighting is a municipal job but it is one that serves to help. I wonder how that can be parsed?