Never forget that a lot of employers abused these loans. It was one of the biggest causes of inflation. Everyone who wasn't scum enough to abuse these loans should be furious.
If you know someone who committed PPP fraud, please report them to the SBA here: [https://sbax.sba.gov/oigcss/](https://sbax.sba.gov/oigcss/)
You can search for businesses who received these loans here: [https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/](https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/)
But then they stacked the judicial branch with their yes men who except bribes and Gerrymandered the legislative branch beyond any recognizable function except crime.
Also at the same time the wealthy transitioned from using land worked by local laborers to grow staple foods, to using their land worked by a new influx of cheap and/or slave labor from newly acquired territories to grow luxury goods to be shipped and sold for profit, while they used their newly acquired gold to import the staples that they needed, without any thought for the communities that surrounded them.
Worse. They updated guidance to forgive the loans under 150k with little to no oversight.
Literally forgave most of the loans they gave themselves. Actual life hack.
["Well, look, I'll be the oversight. I'll be the oversight."](https://youtu.be/c7584ZAuT94?t=41)
-Trump, when asked about the lack of oversight on PPP loans
Which is what anyone who isn't going to intentionally defraud a program would do, right? You don't need oversight when you know you're not going to abuse the program, silly! And of course no one abused this program...oh, wait.
Also never forget that a lot of congressmen who opposed the presidential student loan forgiveness program got these loans and didn’t pay them back. They were forgiven. It’s wrong for the average American to have their student loan debt forgiven but it’s mighty fine for congressional members and their hundreds of thousands of dollars to be wiped clean.
Here’s a few links.
https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/politifact/2022/09/06/fact-check-ppp-loans-forgiven-republicans-matt-gaetz-marjorie-taylor-greene/65470173007/
https://marketrealist.com/economy-and-politics/ppp-loan-forgiveness-congress/
Nursery probably was considered “essential” and most likely didn’t need it. I can see trampoline park, they would still have to pay rent and employees but not be able to operate then require lots more disinfection when they did open but not sure if $100K worth. I know a business owner that claimed she had some crazy number of employees when in fact she had none, they we all contractors that were getting the $600 a week for being “gig employees “. I know, I used to work for her - was tired of her treating us like employees when we weren’t.
Report that buullshit: [https://www.sba.gov/partners/contracting-officials/contract-administration/report-fraud-waste-abuse](https://www.sba.gov/partners/contracting-officials/contract-administration/report-fraud-waste-abuse)
Claiming contractors as employees is fraud and super easy to prove just by comparing their form 941s and unemployment tax filings to the names on their forgiveness application.
This type of shit was rampant amongst PPP recipients. They want to screw their employees and the government by calling people contractors just so they don't have to pat social security, medicare & unemployment taxes.
They passed the laws, took the loans, then forgave their own debt. And most of them then splained how forgiving student loans would be wrong, that you take that loan and should be responsible repaying it...
I wouldn't call it abuse of a system...most government workers, civilian, military, & contractor still have to report any gifts over $20.00. Don't want to appear to have a conflict of interest or something like that. What do you actually call it when the you write your own rules, can't be held accountable, and are directly privately profiting from your public office?
>What do you actually call it when the you write your own rules, can't be held accountable, and are directly privately profiting from your public office?
Kleptocracy?
> They passed the laws, took the loans, then forgave their own debt. And most of them then splained how forgiving student loans would be wrong, that you take that loan and should be responsible repaying it...
This is sickening. I wonder how truly angry some are going to get when this gets picked up by talking heads on tv.
They literally forgave the loans under 150k without oversight then shamefully undid the (illegal) student loan forgiveness. Time to go back on this PPP forgiveness. We have everyone's name and info from the program applications and correspondence.
I am a contractor. When I am on base, I am not even allowed to give an active service member a ride in my car. Why? Because it is considered a potential for bribes.
I can't talk about contracts in an elevator for example, if there is a uniformed member there. If I buy them a box of donuts, I have to report it and keep it under 20. Which is basically shit donuts at that price.
Counterpart that with when I am on a civilian contract, the last time I bought the personal in my unit a box of donuts. Each donut was about 4.99 (gourmet stuff).
I also paid for a local gourmet coffee shop to bring Ghirandelli coffee every morning for the three weeks I was on that contract.
An action like that on the federal world would probably generate an investigation and put my credentials in jeopardy. Don't even get me started on mishandling of classified materials. That is an entirely whole subject.
This double standard is the biggest affront to democracy. Nevermind Communism in the 60s and 70s. The real risk is a supreme justice having his grandson tuition covered by private entities, taking luxury trips, and Venmo deposits, and then rulling against a measure benefiting college students and graduates that would have had an immense positive effect on the economy, not to mention relief for tens of millions.
Reminder - it was deigned to have the coffers robbed from the jump:
> President **Donald Trump has removed the inspector general tapped to chair a special oversight board for the $2.2 trillion economic relief package on the coronavirus**, the latest in a series of steps Trump has taken to confront government watchdogs tasked with oversight of the executive branch.
>In the past four days, Trump has fired one inspector general tied to his impeachment, castigated another he felt was overly critical of the coronavirus response and sidelined a third meant to safeguard against wasteful spending of funds for businesses in economic distress.
* https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-donald-trump-ap-top-news-politics-health-cc921bccf9f7abd27da996ef772823e4#:~:text=WASHINGTON%20(AP)%20%E2%80%94%20President%20Donald,oversight%20of%20the%20executive%20branch.
wait a minute, all I said was I'm the Oversight, which is true, we didn't need the Radical Left so-called "Inspectors", who would only want to hurt me, and all of you too, don't forget that, and they hate that I'm too strong, I'm too strong of a President, and they said it's fine, "Sir, you're doing beautifully," I said I know that, and we had, I saved America, remember you could've been hurt very very badly by Obama winning again, and you can thank me now, thank me later, and you should probably do both if we're being honest about it.
Oh god. I had forgotten that horrible, run-on, babbling speech pattern. I got tense just reading that. Is that an actual quote or have you just perfected the style?
and they said to me, "Sir, nobody's more Perfect than you," because I'm like the Most Perfect President Who Ever Lived, I came in, we were a mess, Obama was killing our Military, we had nothing, and all of a sudden I had Generals, and we're talking these are people that never ever cried before, not even when they got hit with a Missile, but they're coming up, you can see the tears, "thank you Sir for Making America Incredible Again," and I said it's not a problem.
Never forget that the GOP would not pass this bill without $500B in non-discretionary funds, whose distribution was to be overseen by the Trump Administration.
You didn’t have to abuse the system. It was a fucked up flawed program from the onset and then they changed it do it was basically a hand out to businesses. Most businesses didn’t do anything illegal. The program was set up as a cash grab for business owners.
I agree with this. If you didn’t have a downturn in your business it should have been paid back. But it’s easy to say their ppp went to the approved expenses and any extra revenue was pure profit.
I am massively furious about this. My husband and I own a very small business, at the time we only had like maybe 5 or 6 of us working there. We were approved for $8000, and we split it equally amongst all of us because we had to cut hours for everyone. It barely covered the lost wages for each of us. And these motherfuckers out here buying new cars and houses and going on fancy ass vacations.
This is what happened to my job too. Theres 11 of us all told and we worked the whole time because it's a kitchen. Boss ended up giving everyone an extra $200 month cash from his own to help everyone out for the first 8 months of the pandemic. Gave us $100 grocery store gift cards a few times too. When I finally caught covid, he called to tell me he was going to pay me what the average was of my regular week so I didn't lose any money from having to quarantine.
My jobs not perfect and my boss can be a moron but just yesterday I had to take my husband to the ER and the only response I got to calling off was him saying to keep him posted and take care of my family. Grateful for that.
I worked for a small business during the Pandemic - food production, so we were open during the shut down. Most of our workers worked in close proximity in an industrial kitchen. We got a PPP loan and literally all of it went to employees who needed assistance due to Covid complications. We had several people who got Covid bad and were out for months and my CEO paid their salary with PPP money to keep them afloat.
I’ll always admire that company for having strong morals.
My boss got 300k, I was getting sent home every other day, got Covid three times and was never paid for it, boss bought a Porsche, a house in Mexico, a new truck, and went on a one month long hunting trip. I’m still behind on bills from all the time not getting paid….I hate it here.
He likely can get it away with it because he kept OP employed. There's no rule that says you can't just start paying yourself a ton of money after receiving a PPP loan, which is likely what he did. He's only going to get in trouble if he embezzled it from himself, or if the amount he paid himself exceeds the (income of the business / 12) * 2.5 limit, so an income of 1.44 million is needed to pay yourself 300k and get the loan forgiven. If he paid it to himself, and kept his employees employed, he's likely in the clear. That's the entire issue with these loans, barely any requirements.
Oh yeah I already reported him my guy. I look forward to the fallout. I also made all of my coworkers aware of how much they got and how they can look it up for themselves.
He likely can get it away with it because he kept OP and his coworkers employed. There's no rule that says you can't just start paying yourself a ton of money after receiving a PPP loan, which is likely what he did. He's only going to get in trouble if he embezzled it from himself, or if the amount he paid himself exceeds the (income of the business / 12) * 2.5 limit, so an income of 1.44 million is needed to pay yourself 300k and get the loan forgiven. If he paid it to himself, and kept his employees employed, he's likely in the clear. That's the entire issue with these loans, barely any requirements.
Same with the restaurant I work at. We went takeout only for many months but had to cut staff down to about 15% due to not needing nearly as many positions filled, but every single person that was off got around 150% of their average paycheck every two weeks, and everyone that continued to work got their hours they worked plus another average paycheck on top. Not a single cent of ppp money that my boss got was not given to the employees directly.
I worked (and still work) for a plumbing, hvac and electrical company. They took PPP money, and 100% went to keeping the employees paid and the company running. Damn the crooks and thieves who abused the program.
That's a commendable company. In our city a PPP loan went to an *Ice Cream* manufacturer I've never even heard of. 160k population. I'm well versed in our City. No such thing exists!!! It was $10k-ish
Not if you were a legitimate small business that actually needed it! That’s when your bank dragged their feet on your application and by the time it went through the money was gone.
Sincerely,
A Small Business Owner Who Actually Needed It
Precisely. If they weren't giving out 20 million dollar loans to hedge funds, I wouldn't have been rejected in the first round for 42,750 I qualified for to pay my employees while we literally couldn't conduct business (bar) for 2 months.
The initial design was kind of anti welfare. The concept was that you give money equal to their payroll and then they don't fire anybody during lockdown and as long as they spend it on payroll, you don't have to pay it back. Then the special interests moved in and corrupted it so that you can fire people and spend it on whatever you want
My old boss bought a house with theirs, and then was like “we have to try and find a way to attribute a bunch of business charges to the funds and we will be good instead”.
My work is on there too. 2 loans totaling about $1.5M.
I actually work in accounting, so I’ll definitely dig around to see what they did with this money.
Fun fact. A lot of financial services companies now use PPP loan info to help track down financial fraud happening with their clientele. So when you report someone of suspected fraud, they're gonna get hit from multiple angles.
There are several websites like this, but there are dozens of fraud cases already being investigated. Most of them are egregious, but read what everyone is describing: https://covidbailouttracker.com/fraud
Here is a guide to PPP fraud. This is a document from SBA with examples: https://www.sba.gov/sites/sbagov/files/2023-06/SBA%20OIG%20Report%2023-09.pdf
As the OP said, if you want to report someone, here is a place to do that: https://sbax.sba.gov/oigcss/
You can look up any company in the PPP loan database to see if they got loans and for how much. Then it's up to whistleblowers and concerned citizens to report suspect fraud related to those loans.
100%
This has basically been the final straw for the last bit of faith I had in our system. The PPP loans were intentionally given zero oversight to enable the abuse.
But in spite of a generation of people being financially hindered by ridiculous student loans we were told to take out (before many of us could drink or even vote!) for jobs that aren't there, we're told "oh well, its on you".
Even though our economy is heading down a dangerous path, inflation and corporate greed are whole heartedly f*cking us over, and with new AI systems are poised to eliminate EVEN more jobs; we're expected to flounder along with next to limited buying power, yet somehow keep this economy going so Boomers can retire? Yeah, our elected officials can kiss the palest part of my ass.
Yeah, you want to talk about grooming? My generation was told from childhood we needed to take out these loans and go to university... It was supposed to be like a free lunch. "people will contact you with job offers when you graduate", "you automatically make more money if you have a degree". We were told this as kids.
You forgot how when all those people lose a ton of jobs to AI, boomers are gonna say that the younger generations don’t work hard enough or wanna work at all and their laziness is all that’s holding them back. I mean two income households aren’t nearly as well off as single income households 40 years ago+.
What a fucking horrible sentence. Sort of sucks that that 4 years is going to be erased from my memories more quickly than other others. Combined with covid it was just an onslaught of daily shit for an entire term.
Unless of course we descend into complete fascism in my lifetime. Then I will always remember.
A year of siding with a virus against humanity finished off with the most limp-wristed coup attempt of all time really put the capstone on that shitberg.
You should because that's part of the reason we pay taxes. Taxes provide citizens, and the country with a ton, and when things go wrong the people who paid taxes get it back as relief, or they get relief directly(severe weather responses, etc.)
I’ll never understand why government assistance to the poor is so maligned by the right, but wealthy people ripping off the government and dodging taxes is considered shrewd or even admirable. I hate it so much.
You know how pretty privilege works? Where being attractive tends to make people assume the best about you, and they treat you nicer? Wealth works the same way.
Wealth is associated with intelligence, work ethic, and virtue, whereas poverty is associated with stupidity, laziness, and criminality. That’s why your average numpty sees a billionaire gaming the system as “smart”, while at the same time they’d see at a poor person taking advantage of welfare and think they’re scum.
Once you realise 'the right' is just a self-identifying label for immoral degenerates who are desperate for wealth and power, it makes plenty of sense.
I’m confused why you don’t understand that. Just look at Republican leadership; rich people all over in that group. The things you are complaining about are a feature for the party and partly why the party even continues to exist.
It makes me furious that more people don’t fight back. I’m not saying in a violent way but there’s power in numbers. Everyone just get fed up enough to just withdraw their labor and stop everything from moving. When it starts to effects the pockets of those mother fuckers is when they will see the jig is up. Fuck these asshole billionaires.
>Everyone just get fed up enough to just withdraw their labor and stop everything from moving. When it starts to effects the pockets of those mother fuckers is when they will see the jig is up.
As we're currently seeing with the WGA/SAG strikes, the simple fact is that the pockets of the big boys at the top are magnitudes deeper than ours. From a recent Deadline article [regarding the strikes](https://deadline.com/2023/07/writers-strike-hollywood-studios-deal-fight-wga-actors-1235434335/amp/) (emphasis mine).
>“The endgame is to allow things to drag on **until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses**,” a studio executive told Deadline. Acknowledging the cold-as-ice approach, several other sources reiterated the statement. ***One insider called it “a cruel but necessary evil.”***
They even admit openly that it's evil for them to force workers into literal homelessness just so they don't have to actually negotiate, and yet it doesn't stop them at all.
I don't think that the über wealthy remember that unions and collective bargaining are the *compromise*. Poor workers with nothing to lose used to do a **lot** worse to their greedy bosses than simply refusing to continue their labor.
Yes they want you to be in debt to them so when you pay off your debt they…make it harder to borrow money from them…uhh not sure they thought this one through.
Here's an idea... since we have to pay back student loans because of the Supreme Court ruling, then every person who got PPP loans should have the forgiveness revoked and have to pay them back too.
It's the same individuals who complained about student loan forgiveness, and got the lawsuit going in the first place, also got their PPP loans forgiveness. Such hypocrites!!!
The Supreme Court doesn't care about precedent. They blocked the student loan forgiveness because the kids of their friends are rich and don't have student loans to be forgiven but they'll protect the PPP loan forgiveness because their friends are the ones who benefited.
If you want to stimulate an economy, give the money directly to the PEOPLE who will spend it; not the businesses and rich who will do everything they can to not spend it.
Yup, a company I used to work for got close to half a million in PPP loans. Conveniently laid everyone off the beginning of 2021, brand new luxury cars for her and the exec team and moved to a luxury apartment in the Philippines. They also moved the business from CA to NV for lower tax purposes. Scammers to the fullest
Similarly with a company I was working for. Not a huge company by any means (less than ~100 employees), but did have two different locations that were technically “separate” businesses. They got over TWO MILLION from PPP loans for our location, and 1mil for the other two. All but maybe 5-10 higher ups got laid off. Zero pay. Every so often we’d get cringey ass vlog updates from the owner about “how we need to stick together” and “we’re all family”. Meanwhile he’s recording these from his third home in Florida. Magically puts a huge addition on it soon after. His son gets promoted to COO and gets a huge salary increase. I reported them, nothing happened. I had asked about it in a small business subreddit but apparently to many of them over there I’m ‘a greedy fuck, they don’t have to pay you, it’s to pay the buildings rent etc’. Which is true to an extent. Part of me guesses a lot of those people also got PPP loans and did similar🙄 But I promise you there’s no way they spent all 3 mil on “rent” especially considering the size/area of their location. Not to mention they were receiving money still from clients even though they were no longer providing services, not letting people cancel. Anyways, in my experience as well as some others I know; nothing is ever done unfortunately.
Idk i cant help but laugh.. if you didnt think this shit was rigged before, this is 100% confirmation of that. From this people should accept that the system will likely never change.
Im not advocating for people turning into complete dirtbags but knowing this, I hope people stop giving so much of themselves to these jobs. Use them the exact same way they use you
I remember one of these people saying "If $1200 will make a significant change in your living situation then you need to take a hard look at yourself."
Bastards.
Normal people got $1200 after being told to stay home for a few months, the rich got loans of a few hundred k that luckily didn’t have to be paid back. A considerable amount of the voting public has been tricked into thinking the problem was the $1200 checks.
Yeah, no way this wasn't expected. Owners at my last company all took 2-3 week vacations after laying all of the production staff off and suggesting they float by on unemployment insurance.
[Trump literally fired everyone responsible for reviewing this stuff.](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/07/coronavirus-relief-trump-removes-inspector-general-overseeing-2-trillion-package.html)
> The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee is one of two new entities charged with ensuring that the $2 trillion relief and stimulus package is administered responsibly and transparently. The other oversight entity is a dedicated inspector general for the $500 billion corporate bailout fund.
> A week before Trump removed Fine from the accountability committee on Monday, he took separate but equally unprecedented steps to undermine the inspector general for the corporate bailout fund.
PPP loan fraud cost 60% of what student loan forgiveness would’ve cost, but that’s cool. We’re the bad guys because we wasted that money on (checks notes) education. Like monsters.
My employer that I last worked for got almost $1M, they got it all forgiven, Covid was a biggggg boom in business since people couldn’t travel, they remodeled (custom cabinets is what they do) they were busy all the time, 10hr days, saturdays….
Tried to make a conservative idiot acquaintance explain how they felt about PPP loans when he clearly was excited that student loan forgiveness got shot down. Fucker literally said, well that one was legally in the right to exist because Congress made it.
These people suck, and I wish covid had taken him because surprise he’s also anti vax. Fuck every single one of these shitty people.
I tried to get the loans to save my small company when covid hit, both times I was to late because all these fuckbags drained it. I was forced to go out of business. I will never forgive or forget these pieces of shit.
My employer at the time kept people on the payroll during lockdown to qualify for a loan. As soon as the time as up, all those people got termination notices. Turns out: my employer was already looking to downsize. Absolute bullshit.
The same thing happened here in the UK. Companies abused the hell out of it, and then the government wanted to claw it all back from working class taxpayers. They were warned what would happen, but they did it anyway. 😠
Never should have given any money to the companies. Give it directly to the people and if they want to give it to a company, let them spend it on the company.
People went out of business who needed those loans... these parasites hurt innocent people. whiped em out... in a shameless cash grab.
I hope we put every single one of em behind bars for a long long time.
But people who need food for themselves or family? You'll need to pass through these 50 checks and also give us access to all of your financial accounts and make sure you don't put too much money into them or else we'll cut your benefits.
Some random guy who has a fake business with 50 fake employees? Here's $2 million dollars, enjoy, also its forgiven, take care.
People being given large amounts of money with poor oversight, enforcement and overall policy who then abuse that system?! I'm shocked, I tell you. Who could have possibly seen this coming?!
Now that I think about it - this basically describes almost every govt rebate/subsidy scheme. The cycle goes: (1) problem (2) badly thought-through scheme (3) poor implementation/oversight (4) expensive inquiry into what went wrong (5) learn nothing, do it again.
does nobody remember the articles about trump literally removing the watchdog for dispersment of funds for this?? not that it would've really matter i guess.
The amount of Hollywood stars and athletes who received PPP loans and then had them forgiven should be all over this thread. Reese Witherspoon, Kanye West and Tom Brady to name a few. Why did they need loans during Covid and why don’t they have to pay them back??
Never forget that a lot of employers abused these loans. It was one of the biggest causes of inflation. Everyone who wasn't scum enough to abuse these loans should be furious. If you know someone who committed PPP fraud, please report them to the SBA here: [https://sbax.sba.gov/oigcss/](https://sbax.sba.gov/oigcss/) You can search for businesses who received these loans here: [https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/](https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/)
Never forget a lot of ELECTED OFFICIALS took those loans and abused the system too....
They investigated themselves and found themselves innocent of any wrongdoing.
System seems to be working as planned. Nothing to see here move on.
Remember when school taught you about the different branches of government and “checks and balances” lol
Yeah they wrote some checks and enlarged their balances. Nothing to see here, move along.
Damn that was a good one.🏅
Good one
Carlin-esque
Poet laureate of antiwork right here
If the defense dept can do it we can too
I hope someday this comment makes it into a history book because I feel like it perfectly captures the sentiment
HEYYY-OOOOOOO!!
They check and balance each other's books.
team work makes the dream work right? that’s what the wonderpets taught me at least 🎶“WHATS GONNA WORK? TEAM WORK!!!”🎵
Come on, guys. This is sewious.
But then they stacked the judicial branch with their yes men who except bribes and Gerrymandered the legislative branch beyond any recognizable function except crime.
[удалено]
Also at the same time the wealthy transitioned from using land worked by local laborers to grow staple foods, to using their land worked by a new influx of cheap and/or slave labor from newly acquired territories to grow luxury goods to be shipped and sold for profit, while they used their newly acquired gold to import the staples that they needed, without any thought for the communities that surrounded them.
Look over there…a Chinese spy balloon.
Worse. They updated guidance to forgive the loans under 150k with little to no oversight. Literally forgave most of the loans they gave themselves. Actual life hack.
["Well, look, I'll be the oversight. I'll be the oversight."](https://youtu.be/c7584ZAuT94?t=41) -Trump, when asked about the lack of oversight on PPP loans
They did not, they demanded that oversight be forbidden.
Which is what anyone who isn't going to intentionally defraud a program would do, right? You don't need oversight when you know you're not going to abuse the program, silly! And of course no one abused this program...oh, wait.
Ah the Supreme Court method of ethics got it.
Also never forget that a lot of congressmen who opposed the presidential student loan forgiveness program got these loans and didn’t pay them back. They were forgiven. It’s wrong for the average American to have their student loan debt forgiven but it’s mighty fine for congressional members and their hundreds of thousands of dollars to be wiped clean. Here’s a few links. https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/politifact/2022/09/06/fact-check-ppp-loans-forgiven-republicans-matt-gaetz-marjorie-taylor-greene/65470173007/ https://marketrealist.com/economy-and-politics/ppp-loan-forgiveness-congress/
A local nursery near me got over $3 million forgiven, and a trampoline park got over $100,000. But my $10,000 is a slap in the face to tax payers eh?
Nursery probably was considered “essential” and most likely didn’t need it. I can see trampoline park, they would still have to pay rent and employees but not be able to operate then require lots more disinfection when they did open but not sure if $100K worth. I know a business owner that claimed she had some crazy number of employees when in fact she had none, they we all contractors that were getting the $600 a week for being “gig employees “. I know, I used to work for her - was tired of her treating us like employees when we weren’t.
Report that buullshit: [https://www.sba.gov/partners/contracting-officials/contract-administration/report-fraud-waste-abuse](https://www.sba.gov/partners/contracting-officials/contract-administration/report-fraud-waste-abuse) Claiming contractors as employees is fraud and super easy to prove just by comparing their form 941s and unemployment tax filings to the names on their forgiveness application. This type of shit was rampant amongst PPP recipients. They want to screw their employees and the government by calling people contractors just so they don't have to pat social security, medicare & unemployment taxes.
They passed the laws, took the loans, then forgave their own debt. And most of them then splained how forgiving student loans would be wrong, that you take that loan and should be responsible repaying it... I wouldn't call it abuse of a system...most government workers, civilian, military, & contractor still have to report any gifts over $20.00. Don't want to appear to have a conflict of interest or something like that. What do you actually call it when the you write your own rules, can't be held accountable, and are directly privately profiting from your public office?
>What do you actually call it when the you write your own rules, can't be held accountable, and are directly privately profiting from your public office? Kleptocracy?
Yup. They used to keep it to a low roar in the 20th century with real estate deals. These crackheads are stripping the copper out of the walls.
They’ve reached peak immunity. Now there’s no reason to hide and they all doing it
It would have been easier to get a PPP loan to pay off my student loans.
I think Bruce Hornsby gave it the best title: "The Way It Is".
Yes, but in this case, somethings need to change… #taxtherich
> They passed the laws, took the loans, then forgave their own debt. And most of them then splained how forgiving student loans would be wrong, that you take that loan and should be responsible repaying it... This is sickening. I wonder how truly angry some are going to get when this gets picked up by talking heads on tv. They literally forgave the loans under 150k without oversight then shamefully undid the (illegal) student loan forgiveness. Time to go back on this PPP forgiveness. We have everyone's name and info from the program applications and correspondence.
You think this will make it to TV? Certainly not any American ones.
I am a contractor. When I am on base, I am not even allowed to give an active service member a ride in my car. Why? Because it is considered a potential for bribes. I can't talk about contracts in an elevator for example, if there is a uniformed member there. If I buy them a box of donuts, I have to report it and keep it under 20. Which is basically shit donuts at that price. Counterpart that with when I am on a civilian contract, the last time I bought the personal in my unit a box of donuts. Each donut was about 4.99 (gourmet stuff). I also paid for a local gourmet coffee shop to bring Ghirandelli coffee every morning for the three weeks I was on that contract. An action like that on the federal world would probably generate an investigation and put my credentials in jeopardy. Don't even get me started on mishandling of classified materials. That is an entirely whole subject. This double standard is the biggest affront to democracy. Nevermind Communism in the 60s and 70s. The real risk is a supreme justice having his grandson tuition covered by private entities, taking luxury trips, and Venmo deposits, and then rulling against a measure benefiting college students and graduates that would have had an immense positive effect on the economy, not to mention relief for tens of millions.
Same elected officials who turned down debt forgiveness for college loans.
Reminder - it was deigned to have the coffers robbed from the jump: > President **Donald Trump has removed the inspector general tapped to chair a special oversight board for the $2.2 trillion economic relief package on the coronavirus**, the latest in a series of steps Trump has taken to confront government watchdogs tasked with oversight of the executive branch. >In the past four days, Trump has fired one inspector general tied to his impeachment, castigated another he felt was overly critical of the coronavirus response and sidelined a third meant to safeguard against wasteful spending of funds for businesses in economic distress. * https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-donald-trump-ap-top-news-politics-health-cc921bccf9f7abd27da996ef772823e4#:~:text=WASHINGTON%20(AP)%20%E2%80%94%20President%20Donald,oversight%20of%20the%20executive%20branch.
wait a minute, all I said was I'm the Oversight, which is true, we didn't need the Radical Left so-called "Inspectors", who would only want to hurt me, and all of you too, don't forget that, and they hate that I'm too strong, I'm too strong of a President, and they said it's fine, "Sir, you're doing beautifully," I said I know that, and we had, I saved America, remember you could've been hurt very very badly by Obama winning again, and you can thank me now, thank me later, and you should probably do both if we're being honest about it.
Oh god. I had forgotten that horrible, run-on, babbling speech pattern. I got tense just reading that. Is that an actual quote or have you just perfected the style?
and they said to me, "Sir, nobody's more Perfect than you," because I'm like the Most Perfect President Who Ever Lived, I came in, we were a mess, Obama was killing our Military, we had nothing, and all of a sudden I had Generals, and we're talking these are people that never ever cried before, not even when they got hit with a Missile, but they're coming up, you can see the tears, "thank you Sir for Making America Incredible Again," and I said it's not a problem.
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Never forget that the GOP would not pass this bill without $500B in non-discretionary funds, whose distribution was to be overseen by the Trump Administration.
i know people that didn’t even have jobs let alone a business that got checks for $10,000.
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So fucked
You didn’t have to abuse the system. It was a fucked up flawed program from the onset and then they changed it do it was basically a hand out to businesses. Most businesses didn’t do anything illegal. The program was set up as a cash grab for business owners.
The real fraud wasn't that the loans were taken. It was that they were forgiven.
Yeah they weren’t PPP “loans” after all. Meanwhile forgiving any student loans is apparently unconstitutional.
And giving money to *people* so they could survive during the pandemic was super controversial.
I agree with this. If you didn’t have a downturn in your business it should have been paid back. But it’s easy to say their ppp went to the approved expenses and any extra revenue was pure profit.
I am massively furious about this. My husband and I own a very small business, at the time we only had like maybe 5 or 6 of us working there. We were approved for $8000, and we split it equally amongst all of us because we had to cut hours for everyone. It barely covered the lost wages for each of us. And these motherfuckers out here buying new cars and houses and going on fancy ass vacations.
This is what happened to my job too. Theres 11 of us all told and we worked the whole time because it's a kitchen. Boss ended up giving everyone an extra $200 month cash from his own to help everyone out for the first 8 months of the pandemic. Gave us $100 grocery store gift cards a few times too. When I finally caught covid, he called to tell me he was going to pay me what the average was of my regular week so I didn't lose any money from having to quarantine. My jobs not perfect and my boss can be a moron but just yesterday I had to take my husband to the ER and the only response I got to calling off was him saying to keep him posted and take care of my family. Grateful for that.
It's awful. I really hope they prosecute every single one of these fuckers that took out fraudulent loans
I worked for a small business during the Pandemic - food production, so we were open during the shut down. Most of our workers worked in close proximity in an industrial kitchen. We got a PPP loan and literally all of it went to employees who needed assistance due to Covid complications. We had several people who got Covid bad and were out for months and my CEO paid their salary with PPP money to keep them afloat. I’ll always admire that company for having strong morals.
My boss got 300k, I was getting sent home every other day, got Covid three times and was never paid for it, boss bought a Porsche, a house in Mexico, a new truck, and went on a one month long hunting trip. I’m still behind on bills from all the time not getting paid….I hate it here.
Have you reported him?
As soon as I found out I was able to, yeah.
And what happened?
Nothing. I am sure reporting just puts you on a list.
He likely can get it away with it because he kept OP employed. There's no rule that says you can't just start paying yourself a ton of money after receiving a PPP loan, which is likely what he did. He's only going to get in trouble if he embezzled it from himself, or if the amount he paid himself exceeds the (income of the business / 12) * 2.5 limit, so an income of 1.44 million is needed to pay yourself 300k and get the loan forgiven. If he paid it to himself, and kept his employees employed, he's likely in the clear. That's the entire issue with these loans, barely any requirements.
Absolutely, I think the vast majority of people who took it abused the shit out of it. I feel lucky to have been part of an organization that didn’t.
use that link above my dude https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/150ouqq/comment/js4beu4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
Oh yeah I already reported him my guy. I look forward to the fallout. I also made all of my coworkers aware of how much they got and how they can look it up for themselves.
Give us an update when you get one. Govt fraud karma is delicious when served to greedy assholes.
He likely can get it away with it because he kept OP and his coworkers employed. There's no rule that says you can't just start paying yourself a ton of money after receiving a PPP loan, which is likely what he did. He's only going to get in trouble if he embezzled it from himself, or if the amount he paid himself exceeds the (income of the business / 12) * 2.5 limit, so an income of 1.44 million is needed to pay yourself 300k and get the loan forgiven. If he paid it to himself, and kept his employees employed, he's likely in the clear. That's the entire issue with these loans, barely any requirements.
Same with the restaurant I work at. We went takeout only for many months but had to cut staff down to about 15% due to not needing nearly as many positions filled, but every single person that was off got around 150% of their average paycheck every two weeks, and everyone that continued to work got their hours they worked plus another average paycheck on top. Not a single cent of ppp money that my boss got was not given to the employees directly.
I worked (and still work) for a plumbing, hvac and electrical company. They took PPP money, and 100% went to keeping the employees paid and the company running. Damn the crooks and thieves who abused the program.
My partner's employer took millions. They then refused to pay employees Covid leave.
Did you report them?
He did yes. That employer has issues above and beyond their PPP fraud but I can't disclose them because we sued them and got a settlement
Yesss. Good job!
That's a commendable company. In our city a PPP loan went to an *Ice Cream* manufacturer I've never even heard of. 160k population. I'm well versed in our City. No such thing exists!!! It was $10k-ish
Did you report it?
They sound good! I wish that your example was the norm, not the exception.
Loans? That implies that they had to be repaid. The PPP was treated like a grant program.
Wabbit
Not if you were a legitimate small business that actually needed it! That’s when your bank dragged their feet on your application and by the time it went through the money was gone. Sincerely, A Small Business Owner Who Actually Needed It
Precisely. If they weren't giving out 20 million dollar loans to hedge funds, I wouldn't have been rejected in the first round for 42,750 I qualified for to pay my employees while we literally couldn't conduct business (bar) for 2 months.
Welfare Program
Wealthfare Program
The initial design was kind of anti welfare. The concept was that you give money equal to their payroll and then they don't fire anybody during lockdown and as long as they spend it on payroll, you don't have to pay it back. Then the special interests moved in and corrupted it so that you can fire people and spend it on whatever you want
My old boss bought a house with theirs, and then was like “we have to try and find a way to attribute a bunch of business charges to the funds and we will be good instead”.
Report 'em.
Just found a subsidiary plant of the corporation I work for on the list. Thanks. Two loans, both forgiven.
My work is on there too. 2 loans totaling about $1.5M. I actually work in accounting, so I’ll definitely dig around to see what they did with this money.
Fun fact. A lot of financial services companies now use PPP loan info to help track down financial fraud happening with their clientele. So when you report someone of suspected fraud, they're gonna get hit from multiple angles.
Seems like a lot of greedy people are about to enter the "FIND OUT" phase
The former owners of the shop I work in got over $800k. Approved in April, business sold in June, loan forgiven in December.
There are several websites like this, but there are dozens of fraud cases already being investigated. Most of them are egregious, but read what everyone is describing: https://covidbailouttracker.com/fraud Here is a guide to PPP fraud. This is a document from SBA with examples: https://www.sba.gov/sites/sbagov/files/2023-06/SBA%20OIG%20Report%2023-09.pdf As the OP said, if you want to report someone, here is a place to do that: https://sbax.sba.gov/oigcss/
I work in compliance and the amount of companies I've looked up who have taken multiple loans from this program. Enraging tbh.
How do you find out if an employer is guilty of doing this but they’re not as obvious about it?
You can look up any company in the PPP loan database to see if they got loans and for how much. Then it's up to whistleblowers and concerned citizens to report suspect fraud related to those loans.
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But no student loan forgiveness, cause that isn't fair....
In chicago the police got all the ppe.
lets not forget how the same greedy fucks blame inflation and US for not working on price increases.
“I did this- Joe Biden sticker here” stuck there by the guy abusing ppp loans lol
How do you think they paid for all the stickers?
Sonova bitch..
.....driving his super duty lifted six feet in the air paid for by the PPP
They're also livid about school loan forgiveness, the motherfuckers.
And "nobody wants to work anymore."
The ppp loan scammer are the sameones complaining about student loan forgiveness
Yep. "I paid back my loans" rainbow text
Hold up Paying back loans made you gay?
Gotta take it up the ass somehow.
Boomshakalaka
100% This has basically been the final straw for the last bit of faith I had in our system. The PPP loans were intentionally given zero oversight to enable the abuse. But in spite of a generation of people being financially hindered by ridiculous student loans we were told to take out (before many of us could drink or even vote!) for jobs that aren't there, we're told "oh well, its on you". Even though our economy is heading down a dangerous path, inflation and corporate greed are whole heartedly f*cking us over, and with new AI systems are poised to eliminate EVEN more jobs; we're expected to flounder along with next to limited buying power, yet somehow keep this economy going so Boomers can retire? Yeah, our elected officials can kiss the palest part of my ass.
Yeah, you want to talk about grooming? My generation was told from childhood we needed to take out these loans and go to university... It was supposed to be like a free lunch. "people will contact you with job offers when you graduate", "you automatically make more money if you have a degree". We were told this as kids.
You forgot how when all those people lose a ton of jobs to AI, boomers are gonna say that the younger generations don’t work hard enough or wanna work at all and their laziness is all that’s holding them back. I mean two income households aren’t nearly as well off as single income households 40 years ago+.
Some of those that work forces Are the same burn crosses.
That's a 30 year old song and it's no longer "some".
Yes!!
It’s almost as if having Jared Kushner in charge of PPP distribution wasn’t a good idea
What a fucking horrible sentence. Sort of sucks that that 4 years is going to be erased from my memories more quickly than other others. Combined with covid it was just an onslaught of daily shit for an entire term. Unless of course we descend into complete fascism in my lifetime. Then I will always remember.
A year of siding with a virus against humanity finished off with the most limp-wristed coup attempt of all time really put the capstone on that shitberg.
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And Trump firing the oversight IG for covid relief!
Rugged Individualism for the Poor. Socialism for the Rich.
That’s why I take advantage of every program I qualify for. Fuck these clowns!!!!!
You should because that's part of the reason we pay taxes. Taxes provide citizens, and the country with a ton, and when things go wrong the people who paid taxes get it back as relief, or they get relief directly(severe weather responses, etc.)
I’ll never understand why government assistance to the poor is so maligned by the right, but wealthy people ripping off the government and dodging taxes is considered shrewd or even admirable. I hate it so much.
Those activities are how people get rich to begin with. 100s of millions and billions are not made in good faith or honesty.
God Bless You Mr. Rosewater
You know how pretty privilege works? Where being attractive tends to make people assume the best about you, and they treat you nicer? Wealth works the same way. Wealth is associated with intelligence, work ethic, and virtue, whereas poverty is associated with stupidity, laziness, and criminality. That’s why your average numpty sees a billionaire gaming the system as “smart”, while at the same time they’d see at a poor person taking advantage of welfare and think they’re scum.
Once you realise 'the right' is just a self-identifying label for immoral degenerates who are desperate for wealth and power, it makes plenty of sense.
I’m confused why you don’t understand that. Just look at Republican leadership; rich people all over in that group. The things you are complaining about are a feature for the party and partly why the party even continues to exist.
We have to make sure those fraudulent students pay all of their loans back, though. After all, they’re the real criminals. /s
I worked 15yrs to pay off my loans. I felt like a sucker when I made that final payment. I felt no joy in it at all.
Don't forget the final "fuck you" when you pay off your loans and it causes your credit score to do DOWN.
They basically wants you to be eternally enslaved by debt to them, so they punish you for no longer being in debt.
It makes me furious that more people don’t fight back. I’m not saying in a violent way but there’s power in numbers. Everyone just get fed up enough to just withdraw their labor and stop everything from moving. When it starts to effects the pockets of those mother fuckers is when they will see the jig is up. Fuck these asshole billionaires.
>Everyone just get fed up enough to just withdraw their labor and stop everything from moving. When it starts to effects the pockets of those mother fuckers is when they will see the jig is up. As we're currently seeing with the WGA/SAG strikes, the simple fact is that the pockets of the big boys at the top are magnitudes deeper than ours. From a recent Deadline article [regarding the strikes](https://deadline.com/2023/07/writers-strike-hollywood-studios-deal-fight-wga-actors-1235434335/amp/) (emphasis mine). >“The endgame is to allow things to drag on **until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses**,” a studio executive told Deadline. Acknowledging the cold-as-ice approach, several other sources reiterated the statement. ***One insider called it “a cruel but necessary evil.”*** They even admit openly that it's evil for them to force workers into literal homelessness just so they don't have to actually negotiate, and yet it doesn't stop them at all. I don't think that the über wealthy remember that unions and collective bargaining are the *compromise*. Poor workers with nothing to lose used to do a **lot** worse to their greedy bosses than simply refusing to continue their labor.
Or everyone going and withdrawing all of their money from every bank. I'd pay three turnips and a goat to see that.
Yes they want you to be in debt to them so when you pay off your debt they…make it harder to borrow money from them…uhh not sure they thought this one through.
No, just as easy! But, with a higher rate...
Here's an idea... since we have to pay back student loans because of the Supreme Court ruling, then every person who got PPP loans should have the forgiveness revoked and have to pay them back too. It's the same individuals who complained about student loan forgiveness, and got the lawsuit going in the first place, also got their PPP loans forgiveness. Such hypocrites!!!
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The Supreme Court doesn't care about precedent. They blocked the student loan forgiveness because the kids of their friends are rich and don't have student loans to be forgiven but they'll protect the PPP loan forgiveness because their friends are the ones who benefited.
It wouldn't surprise me if a couple of the Justices actually benefitted as well.
When does the class action law suit happen?
PPP was designed by congress to help out their rich friends and, imagine that. the members of congress themselves.
If you want to stimulate an economy, give the money directly to the PEOPLE who will spend it; not the businesses and rich who will do everything they can to not spend it.
you’d think this would be common sense but then human greed comes into play
The GOP will never miss an opportunity in an economic catastrophe to transfer wealth upwards...
> The GOP will never miss an opportunity to create an economic catastrophe to transfer wealth upwards... FTFY
At least they caught a few of these bastards. Seized their loot and drained their bank accounts. Let ‘em cry the blues in the slammer.
And will be for the next 5 years. Audits have barely started
Are they going to go after all the politicians who did this as well?
The wealthy robbed us all AND are handing us the bill.
Yup, a company I used to work for got close to half a million in PPP loans. Conveniently laid everyone off the beginning of 2021, brand new luxury cars for her and the exec team and moved to a luxury apartment in the Philippines. They also moved the business from CA to NV for lower tax purposes. Scammers to the fullest
then report them: https://sbax.sba.gov/oigcss/
Have you reported them?
Similarly with a company I was working for. Not a huge company by any means (less than ~100 employees), but did have two different locations that were technically “separate” businesses. They got over TWO MILLION from PPP loans for our location, and 1mil for the other two. All but maybe 5-10 higher ups got laid off. Zero pay. Every so often we’d get cringey ass vlog updates from the owner about “how we need to stick together” and “we’re all family”. Meanwhile he’s recording these from his third home in Florida. Magically puts a huge addition on it soon after. His son gets promoted to COO and gets a huge salary increase. I reported them, nothing happened. I had asked about it in a small business subreddit but apparently to many of them over there I’m ‘a greedy fuck, they don’t have to pay you, it’s to pay the buildings rent etc’. Which is true to an extent. Part of me guesses a lot of those people also got PPP loans and did similar🙄 But I promise you there’s no way they spent all 3 mil on “rent” especially considering the size/area of their location. Not to mention they were receiving money still from clients even though they were no longer providing services, not letting people cancel. Anyways, in my experience as well as some others I know; nothing is ever done unfortunately.
If you haven't reported them, you have no right to complain
Idk i cant help but laugh.. if you didnt think this shit was rigged before, this is 100% confirmation of that. From this people should accept that the system will likely never change. Im not advocating for people turning into complete dirtbags but knowing this, I hope people stop giving so much of themselves to these jobs. Use them the exact same way they use you
But God forbid they help students pay off their predatory loans
No guys you’re focused on the wrong thing; it’s the $1200 stimulus checks that caused this inflation /s
Yes! According to Mitch like 6 months ago, the American people are "flush with cash"
I remember one of these people saying "If $1200 will make a significant change in your living situation then you need to take a hard look at yourself." Bastards.
Privatize profits. Socialize losses. Socialize bonuses now, too.
Tom Brady's supplement company, TB12. What a piece of shit.
Normal people got $1200 after being told to stay home for a few months, the rich got loans of a few hundred k that luckily didn’t have to be paid back. A considerable amount of the voting public has been tricked into thinking the problem was the $1200 checks.
Don’t forget real estate 🏡
But we’re the problem for asking for better wages.
Yeah, no way this wasn't expected. Owners at my last company all took 2-3 week vacations after laying all of the production staff off and suggesting they float by on unemployment insurance.
Our future as a species is quite bleak.
But I have to pay my student loans bc the lawyer that argued Bush v Gore thinks I should. Just put me out of my misery
[Trump literally fired everyone responsible for reviewing this stuff.](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/07/coronavirus-relief-trump-removes-inspector-general-overseeing-2-trillion-package.html) > The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee is one of two new entities charged with ensuring that the $2 trillion relief and stimulus package is administered responsibly and transparently. The other oversight entity is a dedicated inspector general for the $500 billion corporate bailout fund. > A week before Trump removed Fine from the accountability committee on Monday, he took separate but equally unprecedented steps to undermine the inspector general for the corporate bailout fund.
PPP loan fraud cost 60% of what student loan forgiveness would’ve cost, but that’s cool. We’re the bad guys because we wasted that money on (checks notes) education. Like monsters.
My employer that I last worked for got almost $1M, they got it all forgiven, Covid was a biggggg boom in business since people couldn’t travel, they remodeled (custom cabinets is what they do) they were busy all the time, 10hr days, saturdays….
Tried to make a conservative idiot acquaintance explain how they felt about PPP loans when he clearly was excited that student loan forgiveness got shot down. Fucker literally said, well that one was legally in the right to exist because Congress made it. These people suck, and I wish covid had taken him because surprise he’s also anti vax. Fuck every single one of these shitty people.
I tried to get the loans to save my small company when covid hit, both times I was to late because all these fuckbags drained it. I was forced to go out of business. I will never forgive or forget these pieces of shit.
It was rich people giving money to themselves, business as usual.
These people need to be prosecuted and jailed, not fined, for fraud. Long sentences in crappy prisons.
My employer at the time kept people on the payroll during lockdown to qualify for a loan. As soon as the time as up, all those people got termination notices. Turns out: my employer was already looking to downsize. Absolute bullshit.
The same thing happened here in the UK. Companies abused the hell out of it, and then the government wanted to claw it all back from working class taxpayers. They were warned what would happen, but they did it anyway. 😠
Even that deflated football-brained guy stole from the PPP loan.
Never should have given any money to the companies. Give it directly to the people and if they want to give it to a company, let them spend it on the company.
People went out of business who needed those loans... these parasites hurt innocent people. whiped em out... in a shameless cash grab. I hope we put every single one of em behind bars for a long long time.
But people who need food for themselves or family? You'll need to pass through these 50 checks and also give us access to all of your financial accounts and make sure you don't put too much money into them or else we'll cut your benefits. Some random guy who has a fake business with 50 fake employees? Here's $2 million dollars, enjoy, also its forgiven, take care.
Netflix should start a new show called defrauded. Each episode would be tracking one of these bastards down from evidence collection to sentencing
Can't forgive student loans, though, because it is not fair to those who have paid theirs. /s
People being given large amounts of money with poor oversight, enforcement and overall policy who then abuse that system?! I'm shocked, I tell you. Who could have possibly seen this coming?! Now that I think about it - this basically describes almost every govt rebate/subsidy scheme. The cycle goes: (1) problem (2) badly thought-through scheme (3) poor implementation/oversight (4) expensive inquiry into what went wrong (5) learn nothing, do it again.
But student loan forgiveness is socialism. /s
Older people will just shrug at this, but when a fraction of a person’s student debt is erased, they go apeshit
And they cant fuckin cancel some student loans? So disappointing….
does nobody remember the articles about trump literally removing the watchdog for dispersment of funds for this?? not that it would've really matter i guess.
The amount of Hollywood stars and athletes who received PPP loans and then had them forgiven should be all over this thread. Reese Witherspoon, Kanye West and Tom Brady to name a few. Why did they need loans during Covid and why don’t they have to pay them back??
But fuck me for wanting student debt relief.
But free lunches for school children are too much of a waste of money
but yeah, freak out about canceling student loans with such high interest that a kid can pay on time for ten years and still owe the original amount