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Senate passes bill to provide benefits to individuals and small businesses

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Re: Senate passes bill to provide benefits to individuals and small businesses

#41

Post by adventured »

grecy wrote: post #29
tathougies wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US didn't really need a nudge. The White house and speaker of the house have said they were going to do this since last week. The US is ahead of other countries, given that our hospitals are not overrun already, and we've already started planning financially.

What I meant was the US is finally starting to adopt a few more socialist policies that are common-place in the Developed World.

They're not Socialist policies, that's a confusion over what Socialism is (total state control of the means of production, as one of several requirements).

What you're referring to is called a welfare state. They're welfare state policies, not Socialist policies. The US has been a welfare state nation for many decades now, and increasingly so.

For example, there are no Socialist nations in Europe at present, including Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, or France. Those are overwhelmingly market based economies that have large welfare states.

Re: Senate passes bill to provide benefits to individuals and small businesses

#42

Post by IAmEveryone »

rapind wrote: post #24
themodelplumber wrote: post #8

From a quick skim: - $61M to the FDA for various uses relevant to COVID-19 response. - $20M to the Small Business Administration for admin expenses incidental to carrying out the disaster loan program. - $2.2B to Department of Health and Human Services for preparations/preventions/responses to COVID-19; Not less than $950M to be used for grants or co-op agreements with states, tribes, etc. Minimum of $475M to be allo…

"$250M to Economic Support Fund (Economic, security, and stabilization purposes)" sounds rather disappointing. Just a drop in the bucket no?

The ESF is a foreign-facing economic support fund. The idea is to stabilise Middle- and South-American countries, for example, to avoid mass migration. Or at least that's what we tell Republicans. The real purpose is obviously to help the poorest countries, because that's what you do when you can.

And, yes, $250M is a rounding error. But the foreign aid budget is famous for being estimated as 20% of the federal budget if you survey the general population, when in reality it's <0.5%. So this isn't unusual or anything.

Re: Senate passes bill to provide benefits to individuals and small businesses

#43

Post by leetcrew »

i_am_proteus wrote: post #25
ta1234567890 wrote: post #12

Loans, even cheap ones, are a very shity way of "helping" small businesses and individuals. For example, a local restaurant where I live, will have to shut down for good in the next few days as they won't be able to afford their lease. If they get a loan for the lease, they'll be on the hook for that money with no guarantee of being able to pay it back and with way too much uncertainty in terms of when they'll be abl…

The loan gives them a longer window during which they don't have to shut down. If the business takes a loan and later can't repay it, they go bankrupt. If they can repay it, they stay open. Bankruptcy might result in the loan being discharged and the business remaining open. The alternative is to close immediately and stop paying their workers. If that were my business, I'd take the loan, especially since it's federa…

not every small business is set up as an LLC, although I'd imagine most restaurants are. sometimes you just can't get the loans you need as an LLC; the lenders want an actual person to go after if the business goes under. if I were running a business under a sole proprietorship, I would have to think pretty hard about whether to take the loan or just cut my losses and move on.

I do feel it's generally inappropriate for the government to just give money to a privately owned business, but this is an extreme case where businesses are going under as a direct result of actions taken by the government (reasonable as they may be). not sure where I stand on this one.

Re: Senate passes bill to provide benefits to individuals and small businesses

#44

Post by andoriyu »

rapind wrote: post #20
kortilla wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how all of the other “bailouts” work for industries that everyone gets outraged about. What would you rather see?

The amount matters. I'll take a trillion dollar loan at %0 in a heartbeat and quickly become a millionaire via conservative investments. A 20k loan at %0 doesn't do much for me though.

With the way market is doing today, all you get with that 1t$ is suffer inflation.

Re: Senate passes bill to provide benefits to individuals and small businesses

#45

Post by JumpCrisscross »

casefields wrote: post #10
zie wrote: post #5

with very little information of what this new bill actually does, and no links for further information. dissapointed.

As with most massive bills. You can read what's in it after it passes. The only ones that any idea of specifics are the staffs to members of Congress.

> The only ones that any idea of specifics are the staffs to members of Congress

The bill [1] has been available on House.gov since it was introduced.

[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/6074

Re: Senate passes bill to provide benefits to individuals and small businesses

#46

Post by wayoutthere »

dcolkitt wrote: post #28
ta1234567890 wrote: post #12

Loans, even cheap ones, are a very shity way of "helping" small businesses and individuals. For example, a local restaurant where I live, will have to shut down for good in the next few days as they won't be able to afford their lease. If they get a loan for the lease, they'll be on the hook for that money with no guarantee of being able to pay it back and with way too much uncertainty in terms of when they'll be abl…

> Loans, even cheap ones, are a very shity way of "helping" small businesses Really disagree on this point. The primary value of a business is their assets, brands and expertise. All of those things will be just as valuable after the pandemic as they were before. Assets don't just disappear because they're not used. This is just as true for small businesses as it is for big business. Any business that was profitable…

Most small business owners don't have "wealth" these days; working assets are usually leased so if they're not working, they're an active drain on your cash reserves. Businesses go bankrupt for cash flow reasons all the time. I know a few small business owners with 5-10 employees, and they all take home less annually than I do working a salaried job.

The other challenge is that when customers do start buying again, you have to start whatever marketing engine you had back up again at the same time everyone else is doing the same -- which is going to make it really expensive for everyone (while also ramping up the velocity of Google's money printer).

Re: Senate passes bill to provide benefits to individuals and small businesses

#47

Post by conanbatt »

rapind wrote: post #20
kortilla wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how all of the other “bailouts” work for industries that everyone gets outraged about. What would you rather see?

The amount matters. I'll take a trillion dollar loan at %0 in a heartbeat and quickly become a millionaire via conservative investments. A 20k loan at %0 doesn't do much for me though.

What would you invest in right now to make money?

Re: Senate passes bill to provide benefits to individuals and small businesses

#49

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

dcolkitt wrote: post #28
ta1234567890 wrote: post #12

Loans, even cheap ones, are a very shity way of "helping" small businesses and individuals. For example, a local restaurant where I live, will have to shut down for good in the next few days as they won't be able to afford their lease. If they get a loan for the lease, they'll be on the hook for that money with no guarantee of being able to pay it back and with way too much uncertainty in terms of when they'll be abl…

> Loans, even cheap ones, are a very shity way of "helping" small businesses Really disagree on this point. The primary value of a business is their assets, brands and expertise. All of those things will be just as valuable after the pandemic as they were before. Assets don't just disappear because they're not used. This is just as true for small businesses as it is for big business. Any business that was profitable…

> Yes, business owners will eat some loss to their personal wealth.

You might be overestimating the extent to which many business owners have any wealth at all.

Re: Senate passes bill to provide benefits to individuals and small businesses

#50

Post by cultus »

steveeq1 wrote: post #36

Historically, how long does it take to go to hyperinflation when past governments started doing this? I need to know.

That's really not a concern in recessions. You'd really have to go out of your way to get that result. I expect deflation due to demand destruction.
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