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Congress and the President have both signaled that they're going to be bringing forth another stimulus package. Yep, that means the money printer is going to be brrrring again.

But in all seriousness, I do want to see what people on this forum/P&S community think about a stimulus package and where they think money should be appropriated.

I'd rather this money go directly to Americans that need this money the most, so I'd much rather direct payments for individuals (under the same thresholds as before) and an expansion of PPL (Paycheck Protection Loans) for small businesses.

What does everyone else think about this?

PS: I think that it is important to talk about the debt and the deficit when it comes to all of this as well. It's crazy to think that just through this Pandemic we've pushed forward a few trillion in stimulus packages that are going to just speed up the expansion of the debt.

Stimulus?  People are already stimulated.  They want to work!

Wouldn't the best short term stimulus be allowing people to work?  :/

Heh.

Obviously the Presidents plan is to continue to open the economy, so that still is happening in many states. Though there are some states that are rolling back openings (Texas and California) because of surging infections numbers.

Though the economic issues revolving around Corona have still devastated many businesses and peoples personal finances, so this is just another (and most likely) the last stimulus to help them out in this very tough time.

The CARES act and PPP already added 4.3 trillion to the debt. This gave small businesses unfettered access to loans, even if they were destined to fail. And it also gave people a bonus 600$ a week in unemployment benefits regardless of what you made prior. Meaning you could make more off unemployment than you would if you were working under pre-coronavirus conditions. It's irresponsible spending and it isn't sustainable.

If there's any more funding from the federal government, give it to unemployment funds. California is having a tough time keeping theirs solvent, and they shut down additional counties recently closing down restaurants, bars, gyms, ect. Presumably, all those employees are now going to resume claiming unemployment benefits so give any additional money to people who are laid off, but keep a cap to ensure no employee can earn more than what they got prior to coronavirus. Writing a 1200$ check to everyone regardless of whether they are financially struggling or not isn't doing anything to help the economy.

I think PPP still has money available. They need to get rid of (i.e. not extend) the $600 flat-rate unemployment payout and instead fund real unemployment benefits because states are running out of money and that $600 is messing with hiring.

Or just pay everyone (like they did with the $1200 + Trump's letter LOL) for the sake of simplicity. More bureaucracy - more fail. Make it $500-800 per person per month - not quite enough to not work but might be enough to not get evicted if you get laid off from Hertz and need to work in a Walmart. But it kinda screws those who live in more expensive places.

One thing they should stop doing is propping up airlines and such.

The second stimulus package has been on the way for a long time, now. When will it get here?

8)

Some of it will pump Bitcoin price that's for sure  ;D
But seriously, stimulus packages should only be given to individuals. The goal of these are to stimulate the economy and since the economy of the USA is consumer focused, once individuals consume again, companies should benefit as well.

the trick here is that stimulus puts money into pockets.
but also create debt. which the government passes off as debt citizens need to repay in higher taxes.

but simultaneously inflation raises the price of bread from $2 to $3
which effectively makes a $2tril debt (2trillion loaves of bread) become only valued at 1.3trillion loaves of bread

if they can stimulate inflation at a controlled pace. they can take 10k loaves of bread off people. each year. and when the treasury debt is finally due later. only need to pay 6.666 loaves of bread to the debtor. and keep the 3.333k bread for themselves.

as for the long term view. if at every 5-10 years the 'living wage' is doubled from say $7.50 to $15 citizens for the first couple years think they are in profit. and happy to spend. and happy to pay tax. then slowly as the inflation out passes the living wage increase many years prior.

the government comes up with new reasons why its the citizens fault.. and then finally maybe increase the living wage again. once all deceptions/delays are used up

just remember what was a living wage of $1 many decades ago and a house was minimum $20k
is a couple years ago $7.50 and a house minimum $140k

yet citizens just get used to it and dont even notice it.
however a government debt of 20bilion back then (20million houses) can now be paid off with only value of
2.6million houses. so by keeping hold of leases of 20mill houses and only having to sell off 'government assets' of 2.6mill houses. they can then keep the 17.33mill houses free and clear pure profit

but the citizens dont gain from this because when they buy a house for $20k decades ago. the banks add interest charges. they also require the house to be maintained, repaired and insured. meaning over many decades the person has paid out probably ~$140k just to keep it livable. and when selling probably only breaks even in value wise. but blindly thinks they have made $120k 'profit'

isnt the inflation game great.... for the government

as for a stimulus package
citizen health and economic wellfare should get the money. and a X month no debt period for businesses. (cancel out any debt from date x-y) that way after relaxation of rules. people/businesses are in the exact same position as they were before X

The stimulus package should be focuses on the sectors suffering the most during corona crisis. I think sectors such like airlines, hotels, restaurant definitely need more support in the next month.
Also it would help to focus more on the poorer part of the country than just mainly the big corporations.  Most of the times such stimulus packages only focus on the biggest companies and not the many individuals working for smaller firms or are even self employed.

I noticed that people are more aware of these stimulus packages than before, in the sense that they will not accept if this money goes to tax eating companies

Stimulus package i think it should  be channel to business people and also for less privilege people because directing it to one sector can not render a massive help.
Or stimulus package should be use for a particular state that lack eatable items.
For the benefit of the country.

It feels like we are getting closer and closer to seeing a universal income.

PPP still has like another 130B in it, though they did just extend the amount of time that businesses will be able to apply for it. So they have sometime to disburse that, and wouldn't be surprised if that gets depleted to another half of 130B.

Not really sure on what should be done in regards to the extra $600 -- as it seems like regular unemployment benefits from states just wouldn't be enough. Fed is most likely going to step in and pay for all of the state benefits that were used during this time, as the unemployment system isn't made for EVERYONE to be unemployed at the same time. Just some, like any sort of insurance.

Easiest thing to do is direct cash payments, I'd have to heavily agree with you. Maybe tie it to something like COL on a state basis, though that yet again is just adding more hoops. I'd say just tie it to income levels and send out more cash.

They'll keep propping up Airlines and hotels and so on and so forth, lot of jobs there that the government has deemed too big to fail -- just like the banks in 2008. Not saying I agree, though I think we all know what they're going to do.


Slowly but surely.

Just like the banks took the money and paid out bonuses to their CEOs, airlines will take the money and then lay off employees and/or go bankrupt anyway.

Even if we magically eradicated COVID-19 tomorrow - I don't think air travel will go back to its prior levels any time soon, if ever. Most business travel was a useless waste of time and money and hopefully this is a good enough kick in the nuts for businesses to realize that it needs to go the way of the horse and buggy.

Some other industries like restaurants might bounce back (people need to eat and are generally too lazy to cook) so I wouldn't be opposed to supporting those.

I doubt that the companies themselves are going to go over. Air travel is very essential and I doubt there's going to be another upstart airline company with the amount of regulations and capital required to start an airline.

Typically the 'kick in the nuts' last a year or two, then it all goes 'back' to normal. WH has also been floating the idea of giving out a tax incentive to travel...lol.. talk about a massive incentive to the airline and hotel industry (that I doubt is going to go anywhere) -- But just hearing about something like that is insane.

Any money that is being out to these businesses shouldn't be allowed to just be squandered by bonuses to CEO's, Vice Presidents, etc -- if anything, these bonuses should be going to employees who were putting their lives on the line in the middle of a global pandemic.

I still think both of these industries are going to bounce back.

Talking about the Airlines and such, it was just announced that United Airlines is saying that they're going to have to furlough half of their workforce 36k employees effective Oct 1st. They're saying all of this is going to be done if ticket sales don't increase by that point.

While this all sounds crazy at first glance, I'm thinking that this is pretty much a threat to US lawmakers and the employees to rally behind MORE money for the airlines. Not too good of a look for a politician to allow for 36k employees to get fired, especially when a lot of them are within a certain district.

Congressional money is TOTALLY going to go to them though. Even if they don't need it.

I don't know which one would be worse in terms of public image, spending a few billions for airlines or lose several thousand jobs. Personally, I would prefer the jobs to be lost, injecting money into a lost cause is never good, we might as well just pay for social services for the ones who lost their jobs.

for airlines
tell the airports to stop charging stupid fee's for ticket booth  leasing and plane parking fees.. while not operating.
sure pay the flight crew, and other ground staff wages.

then the flight companies wont incur any debt and can just be happily in limbo until flights are back to normal

its time the nonusa realises how financially discriminative the usd is for them.

^^^ I don't care about the rest of the world. I want my stimulus check.

8)

Update on this, American Airlines has just come out and said that they're going to have to furlough 25k employees when federal aid money stops going to them on October 1st. They're pretty much saying that if airline ticket sales don't increase, and federal money stops coming in, they're going to lay off employees.

Is it true that they're going to be laying off employees? Yes.

Is this the same exact thing that United did? Yes.

Are they putting a lot of pressure on the government to force the next stimulus package to have more money for the Airlines? Totally.

They want more money, and they know that by telling their employees that they may lose their jobs they're going to put pressure on senators / reps by calling them like crazy. Once it hits the news (like it already has) it's a wildfire in the making. Expect more companies to continue to do this.

This is plain blackmail / public opinion manipulation... How can people think it's okay for these companies to act so entitled to public funds ?
I can understand the workers situation and the stress involved by it, but this kind of shady practices should not be mainstream and be encouraged.

All these stimulus packages will cause more inflation in the end and fiat will lose value but who cares in the end it will be good for crypto right.

...Eh, I don't think this is going to cause inflation that is outside of the normal inflation for the US. We typically see 2-3% inflation every year. During this year we obviously saw a lot less consumption which causes less inflation. But because of all of the stimulus packages and Federal Reserve pumping money into the economy, we've now seen the same amount of 'consumption' as before.

So inflation may be a bit higher then usual, but nothing outside of the norm for a typical year. We may lean a bit closer to 3% though. That's why your money should always be working for you, every $ in cash that you have that isn't working for you is losing 2-3% per year.

But none of that fits the simple crypto narrative of - THIS IS GOOD FOR BITCOIN BECAUSE ALL FIAT IS GOING TO DIE TOMORROW.

When fiat crashes, it will crash fast. Nobody knows how fast. But everybody will help to bring it down onw way or another.

Bitcoin is about $9500 right now. The Bitcoin problem is that the Devs and Miners can run the miners' fee so high that it might not be worth it.

8)

Little update on Stimulus money.

Seems to be a good amount of gridlock the Republican members of the Senate right now. Not surprising to see at all. As there are still (surprisingly) some members of the Republican party who care (or at least act when it somewhat matters) that the deficit is an issue and that it may not be the best idea to continue pumping money into an economy that may be able to recover on it's on. Not expressing my views, just what people in the caucus were saying.

But as of right now the Republicans and Democrats are looking at a potential $1 trillion stimulus package. Though they don't think they'll be able to iron everything out before the end of the month, which means the extra $600 across the US for unemployment is going to end.

B/c of this issue, they're thinking about giving that a temporary extension until as final plan is worked out. Highly doubt that after this new stimulus package that the $600 will last that long, seems like Republicans (including Trump with his veto power) are going to bring that amount of money down to 200-400 a week in additional money, though from some I've seen a number as low as $100.

Not sure what the right move is here. As you have many states in the US with surging numbers right now. Who knows we're well be in regards to deaths in the coming weeks, as the death numbers are ticking upwards (and deaths are a lagging indicator compared to infections, so that does make sense)

Sure, it is better and necessary for the stimulus package to go to the people most in need, but who determines who are the people most in need? Can't this be tampered with? Then what? How long will the government continue to provide the stimulus package? Is it able to bear all this in the long run? Wouldn't this make the state treasury impotent?
In my opinion, there should be a solution to this problem, otherwise this will lead to a bigger problem in the near future if the epidemic lasts for a long time. Economic stagnation and lack of work will lead to fewer state resources and more debt, which after a period will not be able to bear more.

How about nationalising a zombie bank, and keeping it under government control. The gov could then issue prepaid debit cards to the people, and place restrictions on their use.

They should also stop funding vaccine research that will never produce a safe and effective product, and stop supporting the bankers and the stock exchange. Raising interest rates by a percent would also help.

And where is debt going to lead us? To more taxes!
I see many people nowadays cheering stimulus packages or *vouchers*, some even hope this pandemic lasts forever so they can earn free money for the eternity, but in fact each new month the government is giving people money, the more these same people will have to pay back later to the government.
It's a snowball effect and it's going to become much worse, probably not now as we are in a poll year and everything must look perfect, but let's see in a year or two...

Yes, I liked the expression, "It's a snowball effect and it's going to become much worse" Yes, indeed, that was what I meant. All the stimulus packages the government is now paying will be taken back later after the epidemic goes in the form of various taxes. Yes, the treasury will become empty and the government will impose more taxes. To fill it up again. This will overburden people. Some people are happy with these packages but do not know what awaits them in the future.