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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

#141

Post by BLKNSLVR »

tryitnow wrote: post #117
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…

Despite being an avid supporter of UBI, I had to downvote your comment for the "stfu" part. I have noticed an unfortunate tendency towards fanaticism on the part of many UBI advocates. This fanaticism does not do the cause of UBI any favors - it just gives it the patina of a policy supported by mentally unstable crackpots, when in fact, a lot of excellent, well-balanced minds have advocated for UBI.

Consistent rejection / ignoring of:

> a lot of excellent, well-balanced minds have advocated for UBI.

results in:

> tendency towards fanaticism on the part of many UBI advocates

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

#142

Post by hogrider »

Another example of how hyper focusing on jobs is counterproductive. You were afraid these jobs would be lost. It is conceivable that you could let these jobs just die and then give this money to the newly unemployed. But no, you stilll have that puritanical / protestant devotion to work itself.

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

#143

Post by hogrider »

hammock wrote: post #107

Devil's advocate: is this altogether a bad thing? Hear me out (thought experiment). COVID relief wasn't supposed to be welfare. Its purpose could be viewed as being not a safety net, but rather compensation for allowing the economy to be shut down. In that sense, it makes sense that much of the recompense goes to the people who were asked to shutter their businesses, put up signage and buy new equipment and reduce ca…

Sure, if you agree with socialism for the rich and for the rich only this was great just like 2008.

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

#144

Post by stormbrew »

julienb_sea wrote: post #67
pharmakom wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Alternatively, UBI would provide a new income stream to literally everyone, increasing everyone's purchasing power. In a pure supply/demand scenario, the equilibrium price of essentially anything will increase accordingly, i.e. inflation. It's a fair point that UBI would result in some shift in market dynamic. But ultimately, most people will still want to get a job to supplement the UBI income, and high demand areas…

Inflation isn't that simple. Sure, if you print a huge wad of money and give it out to everyone (ie. increase the money supply) then you'll get inflation, but that's not generally how UBI proponents intend it to work. The other side of it is increasing taxes on the other end of the progressive spectrum to compensate, leaving the money supply (ideally) largely unchanged.

Anyways, it'd still be better than quantitative easing, the current approach to keeping the economy running now that they can't lower reserve ratios or interest rates anymore, wherein (roughly) the government prints money to shove into the stock market so people who are already rich keep getting richer.

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

#145

Post by geoduck14 »

wnevets wrote: post #45

And no one was worried about "socialism" when the tax payers gave tons of cash to the rich. Certain people only seem to worry about "socialism" when it helps regular people.

Let's not forget that a lot of people were distracted with other things: Trump getting impeached for the second time and a global pandemic are the two that come to mind

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

#146

Post by dv_dt »

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.

They don't need to collude, they just need a public price signal - which advertised rent prices signal. As a landlord, it's something like a prisoners dilemma, only there is a much lower disincentive for breaking away to raise your price.

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

#147

Post by wonderwonder »

geoduck14 wrote: post #136
mlyle wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now, there's welfare cliffs and other problems with benefits that make it difficult to climb out of benefit dependency. In turn, current programs incentivize people to not do things that increase their income. https://www.atlantafed.org/economic-mobility-and-resilience/... A UBI, instead, eliminates these problems and ensures there's always a reason to increase your income. This in turn removes deadweight costs…

>current programs incentivize people to not do things that increase their income. At what point do they have "enough" income? At what point can we stop chasing more money? The USA already has a really high average income. Why do we need more?

When the top 1% makes more income than the entire bottom 50% that average can look pretty skewed.

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

#148

Post by lquist »

My business received about 1.25M from PPP. It was essential cash flow for us and helped save the business (from a cashflow pov) but it was also 100% a massive handout. On a systemic level it makes some sense I guess, but at a micro level it seemed like a bailout to the people who needed it the least. There is also basically no reason it had to be a handout vs an actual loan that required repayment.

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

#149

Post by mlyle »

geoduck14 wrote: post #136
mlyle wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now, there's welfare cliffs and other problems with benefits that make it difficult to climb out of benefit dependency. In turn, current programs incentivize people to not do things that increase their income. https://www.atlantafed.org/economic-mobility-and-resilience/... A UBI, instead, eliminates these problems and ensures there's always a reason to increase your income. This in turn removes deadweight costs…

>current programs incentivize people to not do things that increase their income. At what point do they have "enough" income? At what point can we stop chasing more money? The USA already has a really high average income. Why do we need more?

> At what point do they have "enough" income?

If you require public assistance for housing and food, I think you don't have enough income.

But public benefits can phase out, leaving you in an awkward place where you have more income but less household resources and become unable to feed your family by virtue of making more.

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

#150

Post by [deleted] »

wyager wrote: post #114
anonporridge wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Everyone, even those with extreme wealth, can be helped to see the benefit of raising the floor for everyone. There is a non zero possibility that anyone can lose their wealth, or their children or grandchildren end up losing it. In a world increasing ravaged by automation, UBI is an insurance policy not only for those in need now, but possibly for you and your progeny. 2) Wealthy elites will end up just as poor a…

Free handouts don't "raise the floor" in a sustainable, long-term, or asymptotically effective way. Every dollar spent on UBI would yield better returns being invested in essentially any kind of R&D, unless your time preference is very high.

[deleted]
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