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One way to fight a coronavirus recession: $1k for every American

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Re: One way to fight a coronavirus recession: $1k for every American

#51

Post by champagneben »

leggomylibro wrote: post #40
vkou wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but a $1000 supplement would be a huge help to people who live paycheck-to-paycheck and may not get paid for a few weeks. There is zero reason to believe that the service and retail industry will be back to normal in a few weeks.

Well, policymakers could re-asses at that point in time if they decided to take an action like this. If you really believe that things will remain disrupted for a long time, it seems like you could see this as a great opportunity for a basic income experiment, huh?

One of the interesting questions would be how much a basic income would affect people's willingness to work, and we would not be getting that out of this experiment. In fact, I can't imagine anything useful we'd be getting out of that experiment, except for its effects in similar very dramatic circumstances.

Re: One way to fight a coronavirus recession: $1k for every American

#52

Post by vkou »

ralph84 wrote: post #46
vkou wrote: post #4

This is not going to help. The people who need the most help are the people who are going to be homeless in a month. 1k will buy them a second month. This thing will not blow over in two months. What would help, is for mortgage and rent payments to be suspended as long as the state of emergency lasts. Not deferred[1], suspended. When economic activity stops, we have to stop rent-seeking from bleeding everything out o…

Landlords have more expenses than just mortgage payments. Property taxes, insurance, HOA, property management, maintenance. Suspend all of those too?

Which are either comparably small, or can be deferred, by virtue of just... Not paying them on time. You're better off not paying your HOA on time, than not paying your bank.

People have expenses, too. Food, transportation, healthcare. Hard to deal with when you don't have a job. The landlords will have to deal with their other expenses, too. At least they aren't going to get their properties repo-d, after their tenants stop paying.

Re: One way to fight a coronavirus recession: $1k for every American

#53

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #33
PeterisP wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pay things that I'd already have been paying anyway That's kind of the point. With a nearly imminent lockdown, many people would not be able to pay for things that they have been paying all the time, and that will bankrupt companies and break the economy. A cash injection that allows you to pay for things that you're already paying for - and get the basic things you were already getting before - would be quite help…

It's a one time payment. It just delays everything by a month. I fail to see how this solves the problem.

The goal is create as many delays as possible, to maximize the duration and number of people who can stay home instead of spreading the virus. It doesn't address the root problem because we can't solve the problem - people will have to go back to work eventually. We're not a post-scarcity society yet.

Re: One way to fight a coronavirus recession: $1k for every American

#55

Post by wraithKingPrime »

leggomylibro wrote: post #40
vkou wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but a $1000 supplement would be a huge help to people who live paycheck-to-paycheck and may not get paid for a few weeks. There is zero reason to believe that the service and retail industry will be back to normal in a few weeks.

Well, policymakers could re-asses at that point in time if they decided to take an action like this. If you really believe that things will remain disrupted for a long time, it seems like you could see this as a great opportunity for a basic income experiment, huh?

It's borderline irrelevant. I'd want to see things like rent/mortgage payments alleviated or suspended for the duration.

Re: One way to fight a coronavirus recession: $1k for every American

#56

Post by PeterisP »

vkou wrote: post #34
simonh wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then what happens to the people who's income depends on those rent payments. I think an approach like this makes sense. The problem is immediate cash flow for people. This is cash flowing to people. It may not be enough, but it's moving in the right direction. We're not going to re-engineer the economy in the next few weeks.

> Then what happens to the people who's income depends on those rent payments. Since they also won't need to pay rent or mortgage, they won't get kicked out of their homes, too. Which is about the most that people should expect when the economy grinds to a halt. Otherwise, tough. We're in a state of emergency, that is preventing their tenants from getting paid. Just like their tenants, they'll have to deal with it. >…

IIRC "getting kicked out of their homes" is not a thing during an official state of emergency, it shouldn't be possible to evict renters for nonpayment right now. The same should apply for mortgage foreclosures, penalty interest/late fees on loans, etc - so if you can't pay these things because of the emergency consequences, you simply don't pay.

We need to tackle the financial consequences of the related economic crisis, but that can be done afterwards when all of this is over; right now what matters is tackling health issues and also the immediate financial issues of people being able to obtain core goods and services - and $1000 per person can buy a decent amount of food and necessities; let's sort out the rent debts when there's a vaccine available.

Re: One way to fight a coronavirus recession: $1k for every American

#57

Post by maximente »

i just don't see how UBI survives a highly polarized, segregated society pumped out by the US media. imagine the headlines by Fox News as soon as they find 4 people living together playing video games all day. or smoking pot. or etc.

in a weird way it dangerously exposes people as, according to "the economy", particularly not valuable. the framing will go: these people are literally doing nothing and we're supporting them financially, no questions asked. that will draw a fair amount of outrage, i assume, given that the US can't even get that done for older and poorer people.

that's why i think if you buy in to UBI, you sort of need whatever else Yang brought with it - measuring societal value differently, etc. otherwise you are looking at a situation where certain persons are going to be portrayed as truly valueless, bc in the US the economy dominates so much. and i don't think that bodes well for those people.

Re: One way to fight a coronavirus recession: $1k for every American

#59

Post by clairity »

vearwhershuh wrote: post #22
Gunax wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's make it 10k per month, then we can all be wealthy.

Obviously there is a level that makes sense and a level that does not. Using the big-bank/government debt-system to manage our money supply is no more or less free market than a citizens dividend, it just ensures that the wealthy get first dibs on the new money and then the rest of us pay interest on it. Steve Keen's idea for a modern debt jubilee is more important for the long term growth of the economy: http://www.…

this angle of where to inject money into the system is the only potentially reasonable argument i've heard for UBI so far (but doesn't address its many other adverse consequences).

without much consideration by us commoners, we've come to accept that money must be injected into the economy through large financial institutions that gatekeep and rentseek.

money is literally the intermediary for trading the fruits of labor (not capital) with each other, and the closer money is injected into the system at the point value is created (when labor turns raw materials into desirable goods), the better.

Re: One way to fight a coronavirus recession: $1k for every American

#60

Post by _fullpint »

macinjosh wrote: post #45

This makes no sense. Why would we give money to every American instead of just those that really need help? If you aren’t living paycheck to paycheck just to cover necessities you should have savings to fallback on. We should be giving money and help only to people who need it. Not people who have over extended themselves with credit card or student loan debt and no savings. People with means could use a lesson in pe…

It’s not about helping those in need. It’s about putting money in hands that will actually spend it.

A solution to recessions is increasing Aggregate Demand. People spending money does just that.

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