Especially when coupled with the excessive fiscal stimulus.
We should absolutely help those most impacted by the pandemic, but the amount of money being injected amounts to gross negligence.
Why were people who made 6 figures and still employed being given checks, for example? The stock market is on fire, and many businesses are smashing earnings expectations, yet we inject another $2 trillion?
I've got a sizable portfolio, but the government response frankly saddens me. The green we see every day just represents inflation (of assets). Big gains in stonks, but now we have to pay 2 million dollars for a house in a nice part of town.
Really unfortunate for those without significant assets that ever hoped to own a home.
> Why were people who made 6 figures and still employed being given checks, for example?
Because it's easier to do this than to gauge need, and with the paltry amounts handed out it doesn't add up to much compared to the big picture. The real question is why this has become a political talking point, and the answer is to distract from that much larger rapidly-implemented scam of bailing out the bond market that you rightly point out is "Really unfortunate for those without significant assets that ever hoped to own a home". Hiding the large scale theft is much easier when you can distract people into bickering about their financial neighbors.
100% agreed that fed action via bond buying has been excessive as well. In a healthy economic system, there need to be "down" cycles where overleveraged or poorly run businesses fail.
If the government will backstop all investments, then why not leverage up as much as possible and take on excessive risk? Those that have been financially prudent have been punished consistently. I wonder how much of the fiscal/monetary response is really driven by personal bias towards protecting their own portfolios.
Helicopter money is certainly good optics in the short-term, but terrible governance on a longer timescale.
Because it’s impossible to tell who lost their job this year even though they made six figures in 2019. If we don’t like accidentally giving people who don’t need it money, claw it back at tax time.
edit: the stock market is on fire while small businesses collapse. The market isn’t attached to reality.
Exactly, send the money out today, claw it back from those who earned too much in 2020.
Small businesses collapse, but government efforts haven't been towards helping them, largely more towards sending out helicopter money to the people.
Handing money to people will help all businesses of course, but I'd venture to guess it helped large corporations and brokerages the most.
The loan forgiveness program for small businesses was a good step, but it seemed that a lot of smaller businesses chose not to make use of it.
I'd guess that in the long run, the traditional small business (retail) will become non-viable anyway though. There are too many economies of scale to be gained by operating under the umbrella of a larger corporation. e.g. Amazon can only justify its massive distribution network and same day delivery due to its size.
The small business assistance was a pittance compared to what was sent to big business. It was mostly administered by large banks that have "economies of scale" yet were unable to get the money out to small companies. There were also lots of hoops and requirements for the PPP loans, while large corporations got free money without strings.
We should absolutely help those most impacted by the pandemic, but the amount of money being injected amounts to gross negligence.
Why were people who made 6 figures and still employed being given checks, for example? The stock market is on fire, and many businesses are smashing earnings expectations, yet we inject another $2 trillion?
I've got a sizable portfolio, but the government response frankly saddens me. The green we see every day just represents inflation (of assets). Big gains in stonks, but now we have to pay 2 million dollars for a house in a nice part of town.
Really unfortunate for those without significant assets that ever hoped to own a home.