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The Pandemic Boom Goes Bust

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Re: The Pandemic Boom Goes Bust

#51

Post by throw-7462637 »

geofft wrote: post #29
drexlspivey wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's naive to say that 6 TRILLION dollars of stimulus and a sharp rise in inflation that followed it is unrelated

But most of that stimulus didn't end up in the hands of consumers . People weren't purchasing Pelotons with $600 stimulus checks. The sort of person who has nothing better to spend an extra $600 on than a Peloton is the sort of person who wasn't eligible for the stimulus in the first place. (I do fully agree that stay-at-home orders motivated some purchases, though - but again, the sort of people who could actually s…

> People weren't purchasing Pelotons with $600 stimulus checks.

Anecdotally, they totally were. In my immediate friends group, families that were eligible for stimulus (making around $120K/yr) spent it on luxury items including photo cameras and as a downpayment for new cars. I don't know anyone who bought a peloton but extrapolating what I saw in my circle, it's totally believable.

Re: The Pandemic Boom Goes Bust

#53

Post by swagatkonchada »

pjc50 wrote: post #20

This is missing a very important graph, unemployment. Here's an example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52938993 And its not-quite-mirror, labor force participation: https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-lab... The purpose of stimulus was to prevent those from looking even worse and causing more permanent damage to the economy. In that regard it's been a huge success; somewhere above, Keynes i…

inflation is 7%ish, not 5%ish. but generally translates to much higher cost of living increases for the middle class

Re: The Pandemic Boom Goes Bust

#54

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

lvl100 wrote: post #47
pjc50 wrote: post #20

This is missing a very important graph, unemployment. Here's an example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52938993 And its not-quite-mirror, labor force participation: https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-lab... The purpose of stimulus was to prevent those from looking even worse and causing more permanent damage to the economy. In that regard it's been a huge success; somewhere above, Keynes i…

I agree they had to spend the money to prevent a depression. I don’t think anyone is here contesting the amount of money unleashed. However, I am really disappointed with where that money went. It went into “non-productive” assets and activities.

I’m confused what you mean by non-productive in this sense. In my country, the vast majority of aid money was in the form of massive “loans” to companies that were later forgiven presumably to avoid them going under/bankrupt.

Re: The Pandemic Boom Goes Bust

#55

Post by iso1631 »

swagatkonchada wrote: post #53
pjc50 wrote: post #20

This is missing a very important graph, unemployment. Here's an example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52938993 And its not-quite-mirror, labor force participation: https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-lab... The purpose of stimulus was to prevent those from looking even worse and causing more permanent damage to the economy. In that regard it's been a huge success; somewhere above, Keynes i…

inflation is 7%ish, not 5%ish. but generally translates to much higher cost of living increases for the middle class

And massive payrises to boot

Re: The Pandemic Boom Goes Bust

#56

Post by callmeal »

thrown_22 wrote: post #7

I am as far from an inflation hawk as you can get. I basically think that any government can both print money and avoid inflation bar external shocks with a modicum of common sense, e.g. don't pay people not working to piss off the French and Belgians: https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/the-nazi-rise-to-power... Yet we did just that. People not working being paid for existing at a time when the real economy went i…

>People not working being paid for existing at a time when the real economy went into cardiac arrest by every measure of actual productivity.

Are people still on this canard?

As a reminder, if people were paid by their measure of actual productivity, minimum wage would be $24/hr (see: https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/24/what-the-minimum-wag...)

Another reminder, these are the relief payments made to Americans over one year:

  March 27, 2020: The payments for the first checks were $1,200
  December 2020: The payments for the second checks were $600.
  March 2021: The payments for the third checks was $1,400.

  Total payments over a year: $3,200
A total of $850 billion was disbursed. The total payments work out to $266.66/month. I don't understand how disconnected people have to be to be angry over $266.66/month.

Compare that disbursement with PPP loans. I don't see the same gnashing of teeth over the forgiven loans (remember a lot of them were not used for their intended purpose):

https://www.sba.gov/funding-programs/loans/covid-19-relief-o...

   Data as of January 23, 2022
   Total PPP volume (2020-2021)    $790 billion
   Applications for forgiveness    $688 billion
And "paying people to exist" amount is completely dwarfed by corporate bailouts and tax breaks:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/business/corona...

  More than half of the $4 trillion approved by Congress this spring was targeted to businesses ...
  
  Much of the money was issued to companies regardless of whether they were impacted by the pandemic or used it to pay employees.

  The bill included $651 billion in business tax breaks that often went to companies unaffected by the pandemic and others that laid off thousands of workers. The Cheesecake Factory, for example, furloughed 41,000 people, and said it will claim a tax break worth $50 million.

  ...

   Billions more went to the Federal Reserve to help stabilize markets, and those efforts enabled many companies — including Wells Fargo, AT&T and Carnival, the cruise company — to borrow at lower rates while also laying off thousands of workers.
...

  More than 210 hotel owners received PPP funds, for example, and have yet to rehire most of their staffs, according to Unite Here, the union whose members staff the properties. Among them: Omni Hotels & Resorts, a chain controlled by Texas billionaire Robert Rowling. A group of Omni properties received between $30 million and $71 million from the PPP while also furloughing workers and cutting off their health insurance coverage.
All data in: https://www.covidmoneytracker.org/

So please, lets stop it with this right wing nonsense that people were paid to not work while ignoring the rest.

Re: The Pandemic Boom Goes Bust

#57

Post by thisisnotatest1 »

pjc50 wrote: post #20

This is missing a very important graph, unemployment. Here's an example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52938993 And its not-quite-mirror, labor force participation: https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-lab... The purpose of stimulus was to prevent those from looking even worse and causing more permanent damage to the economy. In that regard it's been a huge success; somewhere above, Keynes i…

That's a very simplistic (and ideological) view.

World's leading country in inflation, Venezuela, has terrible wages.

Inflation makes people overworked, by forcing them so sell under fair price. Wages are sticky, prices are not.

That salaries are picking up doesn't mean real salaries have improved. They have not.

Re: The Pandemic Boom Goes Bust

#58

Post by thisisnotatest1 »

pjc50 wrote: post #20

This is missing a very important graph, unemployment. Here's an example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52938993 And its not-quite-mirror, labor force participation: https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-lab... The purpose of stimulus was to prevent those from looking even worse and causing more permanent damage to the economy. In that regard it's been a huge success; somewhere above, Keynes i…

Unemployment would have fallen regardless, because the April 2020 spike was 100% triggered by politicians ruling activity restrictions

As soon as the restrictions were lifted, companies started hiring again

It was never ever ever a demand problem, only of supply.

Unfortunately, people are too ideological and blind to diagnose issues correctly.

Re: The Pandemic Boom Goes Bust

#59

Post by callmeal »

bluedays wrote: post #2

I think it’s naive to say that a couple stimulus checks and some unemployment is responsible for high consumer spending.

>I think it’s naive to say that a couple stimulus checks and some unemployment is responsible for high consumer spending.

It is naive - because people go off the outrage posts and ignore reality. Stimulus checks were disbursed between March 2020 and March 2021 - it's been almost a year since the last stimulus and people are still harping on it.

Re: The Pandemic Boom Goes Bust

#60

Post by hn8788 »

geofft wrote: post #29
drexlspivey wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's naive to say that 6 TRILLION dollars of stimulus and a sharp rise in inflation that followed it is unrelated

But most of that stimulus didn't end up in the hands of consumers . People weren't purchasing Pelotons with $600 stimulus checks. The sort of person who has nothing better to spend an extra $600 on than a Peloton is the sort of person who wasn't eligible for the stimulus in the first place. (I do fully agree that stay-at-home orders motivated some purchases, though - but again, the sort of people who could actually s…

> The sort of person who has nothing better to spend an extra $600 on than a Peloton is the sort of person who wasn't eligible for the stimulus in the first place.

That's not true at all. The cutoff for a married couple to get stimulus checks was 150k combined per year, which is a lot of money in the majority of the country. I was making 135k, 40k more than the median income for my state, and my wife and I got thousands of dollars in stimulus money. We ended up each buying $1200 Herman-Miller office chairs since we were stuck at home on our computers all day.

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