One way to fight a coronavirus recession: $1k for every American • Hacker News Board

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

#241

Post by wonderwonder » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 9:03 PM UTC

maratd wrote: post #225

wonderwonder wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Absolutely and those people should receive assistance through the regular channels we have available. Unemployment, charities, welfare, churches, synagogues, etc. and frankly, good old fashioned neighborly assistance." This probably works well in upper class neighborhoods, but a good portion of the US don't live in communities with much to spare. People unable to afford a $400 emergency or who rely on schools to ens…

Your point is absolutely valid, but there is no reason why the same doesn't apply to this new scheme as well. You would need to distribute the money and the same distribution problems apply. People are people. Give everybody $1k? Who's everybody? If you're in this country illegally, do you get $1k? What about people who got stranded here due to border closures? How are you going to identify people? How will you stop…

I think focusing on 1, 10 or 100 people double dipping or potentially getting funds they should not have is besides the point. We implement this to keep people from starving and going hungry. Plenty of time to track down people who abuse the system after the crisis. As far as distribution that's not an impediment. The IRS already has a list of people and addresses and we can mail them a check. Is it complete? who knows but its a start and probably covers 95% of people. Not doing anything because of bleeding edge cases is not a solution.

The existing systems you mentioned before are not setup for mass distribution. There is no way the local unemployment office can scale up to 100x. In addition we are not going to just give money to the other private entities to distribute as they are not equipped to do so.

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

#242

Post by magduf » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 9:10 PM UTC

vearwhershuh wrote: post #13

This is how we should manage the money supply, and it should be monthly. Direct, debt free issuance of a citizens dividend to every US citizen. Coupled with a wind-down of the debt bubble. Maybe take Steve Keen's idea and require that a certain portion of the payment be used to extinguish any debts. Unfortunately whenever a president starts talking about this, he has a tendency to be shot.

>Unfortunately whenever a president starts talking about this, he has a tendency to be shot.

What are you talking about? Unless I'm forgetting someone, there have only been 2 assassinations, and one attempted one that famously failed. Lincoln was assassinated by someone who was mad about the Civil War. Reagan was shot by Sirhan Sirhan, but I doubt that's what you're talking about. Kennedy might be what you're talking about, but there's a lot of theories about what might have motivated that if you believe that it was orchestrated by someone and not the sole work of Oswald, with the biggest one I think being that Kennedy was planning to pull out of Vietnam. Anyway, even if your claim has merit, that's only a single data point.

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

#243

Post by magduf » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 9:17 PM UTC

Proziam wrote: post #227

Can someone please answer this for me: Why not simply not tax individuals? Suspending mortgage payments, rents, and taxes would have a much greater benefit as far as I can tell. This topic reeks of political opportunism. It looks like everyone in favor of 'UBI' (including politicians and 'influencers') is clamoring for this despite not considering (or, in the case of the politicians, ignoring intentionally) any of th…

>4. Do we seriously trust the US Government to not mess this up? California is the [0]world's fifth-largest economy and still spends more than it takes in

That's because the citizens of California send most of their income taxes to the Federal government, where a portion of it is sent to red states to subsidize them. If California somehow seceded tomorrow and that money was sent to Sacramento instead, the state would suddenly have a budget surplus.

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

#244

Post by magduf » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 9:20 PM UTC

NamTaf wrote: post #64

Gunax wrote: post #15

I too think this is silly. Everyone wants to use this disaster to achieve the policy goals they wanted anyway. Republicans want to use it as an excuse for tax cuts. Democrats want to expand public healthcare and benefits. Everyone is trying to attach riders for domestic violence victims or pork spending or whatever pet issue they have. And now the Ubi folks want this. Nothing changes. Same BS.

This is hardly a UBI. It's also been done before, for example in Australia during the GFC. The idea is to get money into the hands of people who will actually spend it - the poor will tend to go buy their kid a desperately needed new pair of school shoes, for example, whereas the rich will just throw it in with their other savings. Only one of those stimulates the economy in the short term.

The US did something similar around 15 years ago: has everyone forgotten when George W. Bush gave everyone $400?

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

#245

Post by magduf » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 9:22 PM UTC

tengbretson wrote: post #236

$1k per American seems laughably small. Imagine how many people we would save if we gave $100k to every American?

Probably not that many, because that could result in massive inflation. Sure, QE has shown that we can print some more money and inflation isn't affected that much, but there have to be some limits to that. You can't just give everyone $1,000,000,000 (1B) and not have some huge effect on the economy from that.

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

#246

Post by Proziam » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

magduf wrote: post #243

Proziam wrote: post #227

Can someone please answer this for me: Why not simply not tax individuals? Suspending mortgage payments, rents, and taxes would have a much greater benefit as far as I can tell. This topic reeks of political opportunism. It looks like everyone in favor of 'UBI' (including politicians and 'influencers') is clamoring for this despite not considering (or, in the case of the politicians, ignoring intentionally) any of th…

>4. Do we seriously trust the US Government to not mess this up? California is the [0]world's fifth-largest economy and still spends more than it takes in That's because the citizens of California send most of their income taxes to the Federal government, where a portion of it is sent to red states to subsidize them. If California somehow seceded tomorrow and that money was sent to Sacramento instead, the state would…

Source?

California has an insanely high state income tax (up to 12.3%), compared to Nevada, which has ZERO state income tax. I find it dubious to put the 'blame' on the federal government for California's finances.

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

#247

Post by coredog64 » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

wonderwonder wrote: post #241

maratd wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point is absolutely valid, but there is no reason why the same doesn't apply to this new scheme as well. You would need to distribute the money and the same distribution problems apply. People are people. Give everybody $1k? Who's everybody? If you're in this country illegally, do you get $1k? What about people who got stranded here due to border closures? How are you going to identify people? How will you stop…

I think focusing on 1, 10 or 100 people double dipping or potentially getting funds they should not have is besides the point. We implement this to keep people from starving and going hungry. Plenty of time to track down people who abuse the system after the crisis. As far as distribution that's not an impediment. The IRS already has a list of people and addresses and we can mail them a check. Is it complete? who kno…

This. The purpose of the money is to address the immediate demand shortfall. We have until December to figure out who might have gotten more than their fair share and claw it back. Hell, even if a fair chunk is wired to Central America it will mean those people won’t starve.

We need to be A-10 Warthogging cash now and not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

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

#248

Post by tengbretson » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 9:33 PM UTC

magduf wrote: post #245

tengbretson wrote: post #236

$1k per American seems laughably small. Imagine how many people we would save if we gave $100k to every American?

Probably not that many, because that could result in massive inflation. Sure, QE has shown that we can print some more money and inflation isn't affected that much, but there have to be some limits to that. You can't just give everyone $1,000,000,000 (1B) and not have some huge effect on the economy from that.

It's not as ridiculous as it sounds. $100k per US household would only cost ~$10 trillion, which seems to be within one order of magnitude of the $1.5 trillion we just dropped without batting an eye.

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

#249

Post by Broken_Hippo » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 9:36 PM UTC

hitpointdrew wrote: post #203

tjr225 wrote: post #3

Am I way out of band or does that seem like a comically small amount of money for the average American? I live in an extremely low COL area and live well within my current means. Assuming my work dries up and I don't have any savings, 3k$ would buy me two months tops. Just to give you an idea of how cheaply I live: Mortgage is ~800$/mo, Car is a paid off 2006 Toyota Highlander, Student loan minimums of ~400$/mo, My w…

> Am I way out of band or does that seem like a comically small amount of money for the average American? You are way out of band. The average American can't afford an unexpected $500 bill, lives pay-check-to-pay-check and doesn't have education beyond high school. $1k month would be HUGE for the average American. Most common jobs are truck driving, retail workers, food prep and service. You probably just live in an…

Sure, it is huge if you have your regular paycheck. But as a paycheck replacement because the preschool you work at has closed for 6 weeks? It isn't so large. It might be what you bring home every couple of weeks. (Preschool teachers often need a 2-year degree and get paid minimum wage or just a bit more).

That $1k only works if it is on top of normal wages.

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

#250

Post by Broken_Hippo » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 9:39 PM UTC

tnel77 wrote: post #133

tjr225 wrote: post #3

Am I way out of band or does that seem like a comically small amount of money for the average American? I live in an extremely low COL area and live well within my current means. Assuming my work dries up and I don't have any savings, 3k$ would buy me two months tops. Just to give you an idea of how cheaply I live: Mortgage is ~800$/mo, Car is a paid off 2006 Toyota Highlander, Student loan minimums of ~400$/mo, My w…

I believe that that is the point of UBI. It’s a huge benefit for almost every American, but it’s not enough to live on as that’s the point. It allows you to pay for the things you need and maybe go out a bit to help stimulate the economy, but you couldn’t just be a “free loader.” You’d still need to work. In the current pandemic that obviously presents some challenges, but it’s better than nothing.

That's the compromise: An idealized UBI would allow folks to live without working if they so choose. You might need to be slightly frugal, but you'd have normal things (phone, internet, car, etc). Most folks simply would keep working, though. It would allow folks to retire on their own terms and stop working for sickness if they choose.