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America’s Covid job-saving programme gave most of its cash to the rich

economist.com

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Re: America’s Covid job-saving programme gave most of its cash to the rich

#21

Post by pharmakom »

ericmcer wrote: post #13
anonporridge wrote: post #6

Anything other than direct cash transfers to individual humans is likely to have this effect. Institutions are simply always going to be able to navigate and take advantage of complex government programs better than real human beings. UBI or stfu. Time to try some trickle up economics. Also, for the love of god, let's stop prioritizing saving "jobs" that may or may not be necessary for civilization and start prioriti…

Direct cash still has this effect. $1500 to subsidize rent that is $1500 to property owners.

UBI would likely cool the housing market since people would have the resources to try cheaper places.

Re: America’s Covid job-saving programme gave most of its cash to the rich

#22

Post by voisin »

Cloudef wrote: post #9
voisin wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Universal Basic Income.

UBI has the potential to shift the cost of ubi into everything else, then you are back to the starting point

Index it to inflation. Increase taxes on the rich to pay for it. Replace a ton of other costly-to-administer social programs too.

Re: America’s Covid job-saving programme gave most of its cash to the rich

#23

Post by asdff »

e4e78a06 wrote: post #10
lijogdfljk wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conversely, it also seems to be how capitalist designs work. I ask: What designs actually help the working class?

None, because you can't get around markets even if you try to regulate them out of existence. As seen in the article countries with good unemployment benefits also have higher rates of unemployment during normal times. And don't forget every job being outsourced to China/Vietnam/Africa. If you confiscated all of Jeff Bezos' net worth you'd get something like $1000 for each American, once. The way to help the working…

One need only to look at san fransisco to see how a rising tide lifts some boats but drowns many because there is no incentive to lift all boats, and all the incentives in the world to make sure a favorable few boats are lifted so very high

Re: America’s Covid job-saving programme gave most of its cash to the rich

#24

Post by anonporridge »

ericmcer wrote: post #13
anonporridge wrote: post #6

Anything other than direct cash transfers to individual humans is likely to have this effect. Institutions are simply always going to be able to navigate and take advantage of complex government programs better than real human beings. UBI or stfu. Time to try some trickle up economics. Also, for the love of god, let's stop prioritizing saving "jobs" that may or may not be necessary for civilization and start prioriti…

Direct cash still has this effect. $1500 to subsidize rent that is $1500 to property owners.

Land lords still exist in a competitive market and can't arbitrarily raise rents without collusion.

One way to alleviate this problem is to have a harsher tax on vacant properties to punish using housing as a store of value and creating artificial scarcity in the market, e.g. like how the DeBeers corporation made diamonds artificially scarce and scammed the world for the past century selling a shiny rock.

Re: America’s Covid job-saving programme gave most of its cash to the rich

#25

Post by bpodgursky »

e4e78a06 wrote: post #10
lijogdfljk wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conversely, it also seems to be how capitalist designs work. I ask: What designs actually help the working class?

None, because you can't get around markets even if you try to regulate them out of existence. As seen in the article countries with good unemployment benefits also have higher rates of unemployment during normal times. And don't forget every job being outsourced to China/Vietnam/Africa. If you confiscated all of Jeff Bezos' net worth you'd get something like $1000 for each American, once. The way to help the working…

You wouldn't even get $1000 per person because confiscating Bezos's wealth involves no significant re-allocation of actual resources.

You just bump inflation up for a quarter and then everything goes back to normal.

Re: America’s Covid job-saving programme gave most of its cash to the rich

#26

Post by davidw »

anonporridge wrote: post #24
ericmcer wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Direct cash still has this effect. $1500 to subsidize rent that is $1500 to property owners.

Land lords still exist in a competitive market and can't arbitrarily raise rents without collusion. One way to alleviate this problem is to have a harsher tax on vacant properties to punish using housing as a store of value and creating artificial scarcity in the market, e.g. like how the DeBeers corporation made diamonds artificially scarce and scammed the world for the past century selling a shiny rock.

> Land lords still exist in a competitive market and can't arbitrarily raise rents without collusion.

Well...kind of. It's pretty bad in a lot of places. There aren't enough homes in the places people want to live.

Re: America’s Covid job-saving programme gave most of its cash to the rich

#27

Post by JohnWhigham »

Day1 wrote: post #2

This is generally how socialist govt programs work. Give money to the rich and advertise it as helping the poor.

Please enlighten us what proud plan that is brazenly American would you have enacted to keep the country from collapsing when everything was closing?

Re: America’s Covid job-saving programme gave most of its cash to the rich

#28

Post by anonporridge »

pharmakom wrote: post #21
ericmcer wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Direct cash still has this effect. $1500 to subsidize rent that is $1500 to property owners.

UBI would likely cool the housing market since people would have the resources to try cheaper places.

This is an important point too.

Traditionally, humans have to live where they can find a flow of capital via the jobs available. If every human has a baseline flow of capital attached to them specifically, regardless of where they live, it potentially opens up a ton of possibility in where people can live, because they can do less well paying jobs but still live a good life.

Re: America’s Covid job-saving programme gave most of its cash to the rich

#29

Post by the_optimist »

anonporridge wrote: post #6

Anything other than direct cash transfers to individual humans is likely to have this effect. Institutions are simply always going to be able to navigate and take advantage of complex government programs better than real human beings. UBI or stfu. Time to try some trickle up economics. Also, for the love of god, let's stop prioritizing saving "jobs" that may or may not be necessary for civilization and start prioriti…

Utterly and laughably wrong. Anything other than basic education and viable community-level institutions is going to have this effect. Play stupid wealth transfer games and win zero dreamy wealth transfer prizes.

Re: America’s Covid job-saving programme gave most of its cash to the rich

#30

Post by shinryuu »

ericmcer wrote: post #13
anonporridge wrote: post #6

Anything other than direct cash transfers to individual humans is likely to have this effect. Institutions are simply always going to be able to navigate and take advantage of complex government programs better than real human beings. UBI or stfu. Time to try some trickle up economics. Also, for the love of god, let's stop prioritizing saving "jobs" that may or may not be necessary for civilization and start prioriti…

Direct cash still has this effect. $1500 to subsidize rent that is $1500 to property owners.

That's the trickle-up economics in action! I'd prefer that.
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