Live data from Hacker News

Giving Americans Money to Offset Coronavirus Impact Gains Support in Congress

wsj.com

241–250 of 266 posts

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

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Has there been any research done on the different economic effects of businesses putting their money in a bank account (indirectly creating more loanable funds) compared to other things they might do with it?

If banks aren't lending then having more loanable funds available means the money is effectively under a mattress. Unless it's being invested in equities or something instead of being loaned out.

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

#242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused - what economic effect outweighs "1,000,000 dead"?

Your assumption seems we should spend an infinite amount of money keeping everyone alive. While admirable that is not the world we live in. Every day doctors, corporations, and politicians make decisions weighing how much to spend to keep individuals alive. Your healthcare plan has a max spend. Your life insurance has a max payout. Our police force has a max enforcement capacity for keeping people safe. Etc, etc. So…

Welcome to philosophy. Here we can argue about what life is and how the utter meaningless life would without icecream.

Now, welcome back to reality. A overloaded health system will kill people. Doctors will need to triage. People with no relation to COVID-19 will die who would otherwise make it. Because of overloaded health systems.

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

#243
post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a sock-puppet. Where's the evidence isolations will flatten the curve and not just cause another spike of cases after isolation ends? Covid-19 isn't going to die out after a few weeks or months. Deaths are coming from ages 70+ with severe pre-existing conditions during non-peak hospital conditions. This is normal and nothing to panic about. Also, do R0 values of a virus change dramatically? I thought they were se…

"R0 is not a biological constant for a pathogen as it is also affected by other factors such as environmental conditions and the behaviour of the infected population." [0] If we hold R0 down long enough through change of behavior then we can absolutely flatten the curve. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number

Thanks for the info on R0!

From wiki "What these thresholds will do is determine whether a disease will die out (if R0 1), but they generally can not compare different diseases."

If seasonal flu (type-B?) has an R0 of ~1.3 can we reasonably call seasonal flu an epidemic?

H1N1 (spanish and swine flu) is ~1.8 and had major outbreaks in 1918 and 2009.

Is it realistic to expect we can sufficiently influence covid-19 using NPIs to achieve R0 < 1?

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

#245
post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Covid-19 is 99.9999% survivable for those under 70 with no pre-existing conditions. No, your six 9s are wrong. So far, the best quality evidence we have says: https://twitter.com/ShaunLintern/status/1239693272311828483/... If you are aged 10-19 you have a 0.006% chance of death 20-29 0.03% 30-39 0.08% 40-49 0.15% 50-59 0.60% 60-69 2.20% > If you have scientific evidence supporting mass isolation for a pandemic like…

I appreciate the correction from 99.9% to 97% survival rate for those under 70. Thank you for sharing the link to the imperial college article. Here are some of my key take aways: - 100,000's of people will still die even under ideal isolation conditions (didn't see an exact #). - Isolation must happen until a vaccine is available (likely 12-18+ months). - If isolation ends before a vaccine is found infections will q…

[deleted]

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

#246
Means testing would take too long. Don't be concerned that rich people get it too. 1. There are far fewer rich people 2. Rich people just took a 20+ percent haircut, they did and are paying for it in decreased economic activity

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

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stock prices are an expectation of future cash flows, the rest explains itself.

There is a bit more to be said about how wall st places more value on layoffs than other adjustments to a company's balance sheet. Employees are seen as a generally ugly long term money sink.

I agree wholeheartedly, investors really dislike raises and bonuses for line employees, and will punish companies for it. Shareholder primacy theory is insanity.

Speaking of insanity, Art Laffer is advising the current administration re: stimulus. How that guy isn’t immediately laughed out of any room he walks into is beyond me.

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

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Exclude all for profit property Eh, a lot of low income people live in for-profit properties.

I was not clear. Give mandatory breaks to all renters in for profit apartments. Give breaks on primary residences up to the median home value less the top 10% of homes. No breaks for people holding vacant, second, vacation, rental, speculative, or comical I commercial for profit properties. If they can't weather the storm they don't deserve to keep the properties.

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

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in the bay area with a family and moved to Ohio in the middle of 2018. 1/3 of the population living on minimum wage in a 50k population town in Ohio. That is $18,000 per year. $100,000 has much more purchasing power than $18,000. For you saving $5000 is easy. For someone making minimum wage, saving $500 by the end of the year is impossible. If you have a car, your deductible might be 250-500. The majority of…

Yes, $18,000 has less purchasing power than $100,000, but a lot of people still have this conception that people making $100,000 can't possibly be living paycheck to paycheck.

I generally challenge anyone who claims this to post a detailed budget. SF is expensive, but if it were so expensive that someone making $100k could not cut any expenses, it would not be able to function. Stop contributing to your 401k or something.

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

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Exclude all for profit property Eh, a lot of low income people live in for-profit properties.

I was not clear. Give mandatory breaks to all renters in for profit apartments. Give breaks on primary residences up to the median home value less the top 10% of homes. No breaks for people holding vacant, second, vacation, rental, speculative, or comical I commercial for profit properties. If they can't weather the storm they don't deserve to keep the properties.

> Give mandatory breaks to all renters in for profit apartments.

> No breaks for people holding [...] rental [...] properties.

Some of those rental properties might no longer be rental properties if their owners are insolvent, particularly in the case of 1 or 2 family homes. Banks do not want tenants.

Post reply on HN