We felt a bit guilty taking some of the money from the handout, until we saw how much more all the companies around us took. It all got snatched up as quick as companies could adjust their numbers to qualify. While we were affected by a reduction in orders at beginning of the pandemic , we would have survived without layoffs anyway. But we decided to take the money and hold on to it in case the situation got worse. N…
Pay more with that pot of gold you're sitting on?
We are absolutely paying our people more, just gave everybody raises. But can’t get new people even when we offer more.
The US lacks the state capacity to tell who was going to have trouble with COVID-19 closures, and who wouldn't, so a whole lot of money just had to go to people that had no need for it whatsoever. Regarding PPP, every local tech staff augmentation company got a few months worth of payroll out of it. For those of you not in the know, their model involves hiring developers at $x an hour, and then placing them at large…
> The US lacks the state capacity to tell who was going to have trouble with COVID-19 closures, and who wouldn't, so a whole lot of money just had to go to people that had no need for it whatsoever. I love how it’s so critical that we means-test individual welfare so that no dollar can possibly go to someone who doesn’t need it, but when it comes to means-testing corporations for handouts, all of a sudden it’s imposs…
That would be because they and their friends are on only one of the two (welfare/corporate welfare) lists you mentioned.
Sure, if you agree with socialism for the rich and for the rich only this was great just like 2008.
It is bad to keep citing 2008 money as if it were a handout. Much of the money was paid back with interest, and the government MADE money on those loans. Look up the “maiden lane” loans for an example.
There were also side effects, i.e. many small banks closing because they were not 'worth' being saved. So what we saw was big banks getting an infusion, paying it back and finding themselves at the top of a more consolidated market thanks to the US Govt.
What would the unit cost if it were an empty lot? That is the tax.
Until you get the capability of temporarily creating a parallel universe and rolling it back, It's an unanswerable question, that's the point. Also you are confusing cost for price.
Denmark must be capable of creating parallel universes then.
In general, a government spending program to create jobs costs 3x as much as the jobs pay.
And to think that they could have just given the money to people instead.
But then they would never work again! Look at where rent moratorium and $6,000 got us!
/s
Sorry, hearing this ^ bs logic every day in outlets from WSJ to NPR is beyond frustrating. We have helped our citizens so little during a pandemic it has shaken my already cynical core.
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.
We will see how it fails as California will inevitably try it. It will be a spectacular failure on a monumental scale and a canary in the coal mine.
I have no doubt this will be proclaimed to have “worked!” on a small scale. But this is not engineering, this is society, and society scales much differently.
It's bad to keep countering complaints about 2008 as if the balance sheet is all that matters. The ethical complaints aren't about the money, but about the incentives and disincentives for certain behaviour, and the constant preferential treatment for a certain class of people above others. The cited reason for buying the bank debt instead of the home owner debt was "moral hazard", which actually applies to them both…
>The cited reason for buying the bank debt instead of the home owner debt was "moral hazard" The moral hazard was the smallest of the problems. The complexity of how to do so seems like the much bigger issue. What does "buying homeowner debt" even mean when much of that debt has been securitized?
I'll describe it by the ultimate objective: most people keep their homes, and the lenders who encouraged and inflated this bad debt lose money on it instead.
AFAIK the main purpose first and foremost was to prevent the health system from collapsing. Everything else was secondary. Take the spike out of the incidence rate to spread hospital admissions out over time. It would not affect how many got infected, not even deaths directly - the only way to reduce deaths would be if in the meantime better treatments could be developed, more people getting vaccinated, and enough ho…
> AFAIK the main purpose first and foremost was to prevent the health system from collapsing. You're arguing against the wording of the title, but the overall conclusion is clear - that lockdowns (in the common use of the word) did not have the effects that were used to justify them.
This paper was written by an economist, not an epidemiologist. And, if I'm looking at it correctly, a grad student at that. It's lacking some levels of detail - like it blanket says lockdowns failed, but defines lockdowns in a way that is not necessarily common use. Then admits at least one type of lockdown was successful, but states that as an aside, leaving the title and conclusion intact.
Why wouldn't it? We're talking about a mortgage on the rental property itself not on the landlord's personal residence.
> We're talking about a mortgage on the rental property itself not on the landlord's personal residence. Yes. Everyone in this conversation understands that. There's no relation between the amount and terms on your mortgage for your rental property and the market price to rent a given unit. If I take a 20 year mortgage does that mean I should charge more rent than if I took 30 years because my payment is higher? Shou…
If the increase in equity should be satisfactory, that's an argument for just letting everyone live in the place for free. I mean, you're coming out ahead.
I know other landlords with multiple units. If they don't think something will be an income producing property, they won't buy.