Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Giving Americans Money to Offset Coronavirus Impact Gains Support in Congress

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 266 posts

Re: Giving Americans Money to Offset Coronavirus Impact Gains Support in Congress

#101

Post by wenc »

shartshooter wrote: post #26

As long as the money is given to folks who need and/or will spend it, it feels like this is the exact situation where the federal government steps in for stimulus. There’s no pull yourself up by your bootstraps talk right now and there shouldn’t be. I know the single parent working a couple of jobs will spend every dime they’re given in a time like this, just to survive. A yuppie like me would just park it in my savi…

Under normal circumstances, we could make it opt-in. This was a stipulation of Andrew Yang's UBI policy.

It could be argued that under current circumstances, creating an opt-in mechanism might increase administrative complexity. That said, I imagine you still need a simple mechanism to figure out eligibility. Do non-citizens qualify? Permanent residents? Short-term visitors? International students? Only people with SSNs?

So if there's going to be an administrative layer anyway, the difficulty of adding an opt-in mechanism to that layer would be marginal.

Re: Giving Americans Money to Offset Coronavirus Impact Gains Support in Congress

#102

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

23B1 wrote: post #35
baybal2 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think housing market in USA seriously needs a healthy correction to make housing available to masses again

A 'serious correction' would erase the wealth of the home-owning middle class. A pause on mortgage payments and interest simply extends the mortgage schedule by a year.

Exclude all for profit property, and all second homes. All of America is suffering right now. If we protect the land owners we're only lengthening the noose around all of necks.

Re: Giving Americans Money to Offset Coronavirus Impact Gains Support in Congress

#104

Post by Zenst »

Last global pandemic of most compare - the Spanish Flu, we had a society that was savings conscious.

Past few decades have seen a turn towards interest rates so low that borrowing over saving has prevailed.

So whilst this may help a little and more so for some, it will do nothing for many who are debt rolling from one payday until another. That without intervention upon loans and debt repayments over this period will cause more chaos and impact.

Though most will need fuel, food and essentials in this time, might be better if you had those delivered to those who are stuck and in direct need.

Otherwise, I wouldn't be supprised if ration books become norm for a period soon. Certainly for toilet roll.

Re: Giving Americans Money to Offset Coronavirus Impact Gains Support in Congress

#105

Post by jkhdigital »

abfan1127 wrote: post #86
nerdponx wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simple example is that we can't go around breaking windows to stimulate the economy. Sure, the window manufacturer and the window replacement companies might benefit, however that money which went towards the window could have gone elsewhere. You misunderstand. The window is already broken. Everyone would be better off if the windows was fixed, but if the government doesn't help pay for it the window will never g…

The windows aren't broken. And we both know it won't be meth, its the new fancy fentanyl. those are not mattresses. those are bank accounts.

Exactly, and bank deposits are the source of loanable funds so they are still very much a critical part of the living economy. This isn't the 1920's where people literally had wads of cash completely removed from the banking system, nobody does that shit anymore.

Re: Giving Americans Money to Offset Coronavirus Impact Gains Support in Congress

#106

Post by throwanem »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #77

We have this already. It's called unemployment. We don't need stimulus for people with existing paychecks. We need conditions and durations on unemployment temporarily lifted, some for of access for self-employed or under-the-table workers, and some form of block grants for companies that would otherwise face bankruptcies (which would cascade) and and obviously enormous increases in funding that would be required by…

I don't know why you're downvoted, but unemployment is a state-level program. This is a national problem and merits a federal response.

Re: Giving Americans Money to Offset Coronavirus Impact Gains Support in Congress

#107

Post by tomp »

rednerrus wrote: post #78
scottlamb wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree giving poor people money (possibly just everyone money right away rather than sorting out who is poor first) is the right thing to do now, but I think about it slightly differently: I don't think "economic stimulus" is the right goal. The public health officials are doing their absolute best to bring the economy to a near-halt, at least any part of it involving non-essential physical interaction. I don't want…

Keeping the wheels moving on the economy is much easier than restarting the economy.

It's also impossible. How many millions would I have to pay you for you to take a skiing trip to Italy right now (flight, hotel, ski lifts, ...)? No matter the size of the economic stimulus, some parts of the economy will grind to a halt (demand shock), whereas others will be overstressed (supply shock - food, toilet paper, medical services). I think any stimulus should be targeted at those parts specifically, otherwise you're just wasting resources.

Re: Giving Americans Money to Offset Coronavirus Impact Gains Support in Congress

#108

Post by dsfyu404ed »

Frost1x wrote: post #16
sethammons wrote: post #3

Instead of giving money, why not suspend debt payments and interest growth?

In my opinion, it feels more like damaged image management to me. Direct cash flow to citizens gives immediate association to the source of the cash and helps restore faith in the current US economic system and government, or at least makes people a little less cranky to soften the blow. People want change and these issues are further highlighting massive systemic problems in the US to the population at large who are…

The point is that that one month's rent may buy enough time for the economy to stabilize.

Make no mistake, unless everything picks back up nearly instantly (aka "when pigs fly") people will lose jobs and miss payments and be evicted and all sorts of other bad things just like in every other downturn. The point of the $1k (or whatever amount) is to buy a month for the COVID19 situation to stabilize thereby minimizing the downturn, or at least that's how it works in theory.

Re: Giving Americans Money to Offset Coronavirus Impact Gains Support in Congress

#109

Post by banachtarski »

piokoch wrote: post #98
tombert wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mostly agree; the only caveat I'd give is that it's tough to say how much longer any of us are going to be yuppies right now; I work for one of the many big megacorporations whose stock is tanking right now. If the stock doesn't pick up soonish, there's a non-zero probability of me being laid off. While I'm not that worried (I've been able to find work in bad economies in the past), I also do feel a bit of paranoia…

Why? The price of the stocks does not affect company in any way. If the company sales are going down or clients stop coming this is an issue, stock value is important only for those who hold/speculate using them. You company has already got the money from selling stocks, nobody is going to take them away.

Stock prices are leading indicators of future revenue. Not perfect indicators obviously, but the stock prices reflect lower sales/profits/etc due to reduced mobility, supply-chains etc.

Re: Giving Americans Money to Offset Coronavirus Impact Gains Support in Congress

#110

Post by cliffy »

9uq34aofgh wrote: post #96

The media/political response is a giant hoax. Read the source paper from the CDC our corporate and political leaders are using to justify the panic: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/rr/rr6601a1.htm and appendix 5 https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/44314 From the evidence section of appendix 5: "Mandatory quarantine delayed the peak of the pandemic, but when cost was taken into account, mandatory quarantine was not an…

Of course you're some newly created sock-puppet account too afraid to post under your real handle.

COVID-19 will absolutely cause the death of millions in the US alone if proper steps aren't taken to reduce R0. If not from the disease itself, then from hospitals being completely overloaded.

Edit: Let's be real: lockdown/isolation is going to have to persist for at least a month or more to have a real chance of preventing the spread to most of the population in the US. 2 weeks is not going to cut it.

Post reply on HN