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Comment by conductr

6 hours ago

There was a stimulus check that went out around that time. I felt it insane that I was receiving a check when nobody in my life was negatively impacted, the economy didn’t seem hurt (no more then when you’re up then down at a blackjack table), it was just a rebalancing of people’s portfolios values. Turns out that started the wave of completely untargeted stimulus/aide that would come at every economic faltering. I wish we would at least try to identify who is in need during these times. It drives me crazy when I would see the lines at Gucci and LV type stores backed up every week a Covid check went out.

12 comments

conductr

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wolpoli  1 hour ago

> rebalancing of people’s portfolios values It's not just portfolio value. It's well accepted in the economics that wealth impact's people spending (see wealth effect and its cousin negative wealth effect)

byronic  6 hours ago

TLDR - Why make it harder for people to get help on the basis that some people might get help who don't deserve it?

means testing kills the usefulness of these kinds of stimuli. I completely disagree with your point here and the people buying Gucci/LV are a drop in the bucket compared to, say, Wal-Mart's yearly wage theft statistics.

There is no simple means of identifying who is in need and if people get the help who don't need it they can redistribute it if they are morally inclined or do hoarding or w/e; who cares?

  • conductr  6 hours ago

    There’s no need to make it difficult. All you have to do is publish sensible guardrails and force people to apply for assistance and it would shrink the public cost substantially.

    I have homeowners insurance, but if my home burns down today I won’t have any reasonable assistance deposited this week. There’s a claim process and I need to have an emergency fund to get my immediate needs met.

    Everyone should care. The national debt and eventually the nation will crumble based on these decisions to just print massive amounts of money with no real need.

    I didn’t qualify for any stimulus after that one in 2001 so they are filtering it down and putting up some guardrails. They just need to give this some intent and pre thought. You can claim it’s too difficult when you didn’t even try to have a plan or come up with something that was actually going to good use to assist those in need.

    Another way to think about it, if Covid was more severe than it was, we’d have wanted those payments to continue for twice or more longer to those in need. But if we were tapped out and had to stop them early, then those in need ultimately succumb to whatever and all the money was spent in vain.

    I personally believe we shouldn’t socialize every blip. We are just perpetuating this “who cares” mentality and a welfare mentality. Why even have savings or an emergency fund, the government should step in at every turn. It’s a ridiculous stance in my view.

    • tsimionescu  5 hours ago

      > All you have to do is publish sensible guardrails and force people to apply for assistance and it would shrink the public cost substantially.

      On the contrary, all public experience shows the opposite. The administrative costs of actually checking if only the right people are receiving a benefit very quickly start out weighing the cost of just paying everyone - especially if you don't want to make the process very onerous for the people who need it (and thus ensure that many who are entitled will not actually be able to receive this).

      4 replies →

    • sokoloff  20 minutes ago

      Give it to anyone in an identifiable way. Tax it back from the people you don’t want to be able to keep it.

      In a lot of cases, getting the money out there quickly matters a lot and taxing it back 1-3 years later is fine.

    • chadgpt3  5 hours ago

      Imagine you're a middle class white picket fence guy, and your bank balance is a bit low. You apply for assistance.

      Now imagine you're homeless. You don't apply for assistance.

      1 reply →