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It's likely more people will die from economic hardship than the virus
by billions 7y ago
It's likely more people will die from economic hardship than the virus
- wbl 7y agoThere is no reason we can't ensure they have food and a house for the duration.
- irrational 7y agoThere is no reason we can't. But we won't. Rather, politicians will almost surely choose not to do anything until it is far too late.
- hkmurakami 7y agoThey literally passed a stimulus bill in the Senate this week with $500B for individuals. It heads to the House now.
- irrational 7y agoI’ve been avoiding the news. How much will each American get? Will it be per individual, or only adults? Will people with children get more? Will it be more for more children? How many months worth of expenses should it cover?
- hkmurakami 7y ago$1200/person, $500 per child with phase out. https://www.wsj.com/articles/senate-republicans-prepare-third-coronavirus-measure-11584622892?emailToken=590c16418d651af9b1f985d62541a87flwHoiScAdx79LWlbpFr5VYOC+0e3+9GA+JOwEFGRC/bNw+wdhqWDvM+DIuiBSnX+UTHZh7q2gdwB/9Ss3dG0dfY6EknTwFKm1lCfJSN43NGQA3GTYawPFN0+hIKna8gr&reflink=article_copyURL_share https://www.wsj.com/articles/senate-republicans-prepare-thir... There's a good chance the house will revise aid for individuals upwards
- sfkdjf9j3j 7y agoIt's a maximum of $1,200 per individual plus an additional $500 per child. The amount is based on your 2018 AGI. The amount you receive begins to decrease at $75,000 and if you made more than $99,000 in 2018 you don't receive any money. This is also not just the government cutting a check, it's a rebate from your 2018 taxes. You won't get back more than you paid in taxes, unless you're part of a carve out meant to protect low income seniors, which still requires a minimum income of $2,500 in 2018 (including social security). So it's something of a mixed bag. It won't help the truly destitute, and it won't help people who had a good year in 2018 but recently lost their job due to the virus (though those should qualify for unemployment benefits). The means testing is also not normalized by any kind of cost of living metric, so people in low cost of living areas will probably qualify disproportionately, even though the areas worst affected by the virus directly are urban, high cost of living.
- nexuist 7y agoCalifornia is one of the most liberal states in the country, isn't this the perfect time to enact some of those "socialist" policies to ensure people stuck at home get the supplies they need? Forget about federal leadership, there's still a whole state government with agencies and employees ready to act. This is the time to show the rest of the country how to do it properly.
- big_chungus 7y agoIn a big enough depression, even "the one percent" might not produce enough to cover that sort of expense. Where else where you go? This has a global reach, so you can't really borrow from the next country over. Can't really sell bonds to Americans, because that reduces liquidity further. Inflate and you'll kill what savings Americans have left and risk stagflation. So, how do you pay for it? Forget taxing certain people more or less, past a certain point, the money simply doesn't exist; there's no bottomless pit of money on which the gov't can draw in a second great depression.
- casefields 7y agoThis is Mao-esqe nonsense. You can't turn off the economy the imagine government is going to divvy up whatever stuff needs dispersing. The Soviet Union tried that.
- wbl 7y agoRemember the War?
- inferiorhuman 7y agoRemember the massive inflation in the 70s? We survived.
- mirimir 7y agoYeah, but they had crappy information management.