Giving Americans Money to Offset Coronavirus Impact Gains Support in Congress

Thank you for sharing the link to the imperial college article. Here are some of my key take aways:

- 100,000's of people will still die even under ideal isolation conditions (didn't see an exact #).

- Isolation must happen until a vaccine is available (likely 12-18+ months).

- If isolation ends before a vaccine is found infections will quickly spike thus only delaying the dreaded hospital overflow.

- Best reasonable NPIs appear to be isolating 70+ and having sick people stay at home.

- The authors state there are many uncertainties in NPI policy effectiveness.

As with any complex topic, nuance and detail is important. The American populace is accepting of mass isolation for a few weeks, but what about months or years?

Do we really want to be isolated for the next 18+ months? Are we comfortable with families losing their jobs, home, and more? Are we comfortable with the elderly losing a big chunk of their retirement investments which may not rebound before they need it?

Again, if we don't mass isolate until a vaccine is discovered, then all we're doing is wasting time and money with mass isolations.

There are lots of diseases in this world that kill people and we can't control them all. This is a normal and sad part of the circle of life. We must evaluate reasonable measures, with clear and honest public discussions (a stretch, I know).

I understand my perspective against mass isolations isn't popular, but I'm not seeing much evidence to refute it.

If you have a $400k mortgage on a $500k asset, and I'm proposing systemic changes to make it worth $250k, you'll end up owing $150k more than it's worth. If something happens and you lose your job, you're screwed. You can sell and refinance and you'll still owe nearly as much every month as the person who bought your newly cheaper house, but now you don't have a house.

It's not about "I got mine, fuck you" so much as "this is my life's savings you're talking about making dramatically smaller" and "I'm super leveraged on this asset."

Who would say this? The Federal government? I'm no lawyer, but essentially, they would be voiding hundreds of millions of contracts (?)

The Government can't just wave a wand and take an action like this. Even if they could, I don't think you would feel very good about this 'eat the rich' approach for long.

Think about it: Why would I as a landlord keep paying utility bills, taxes, insurance when my tenants don't pay me rent? Why would I pay my mortgage? I wouldn't. I would simply walk away. How long after you stop paying rent before your apartment doesn't have running water?

The real estate market would be decimated. Banks would fail. Trillions and trillions in value and investments destroyed. Unemployment would skyrocket. Goodbye recession, hello depression.

A back door approach to this is a moratorium on evictions, which some states have done. Good luck trying this approach if you're a tenant tho. If this crises is shorter than expected, you'll shortly be evicted and carry that on your record.

I think you're operating on the misconception that landlords and businesses are making outsized margins and 'hoarding' wealth. To think that they somehow would have the ability to continue providing you with services and incurring all expenses without any income is naive.

Direct cash payments to all taxpayers is the easiest, fastest, and probably cheapest way to achieve your goals of bailing out those at risk.