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Mortgages and by extension rent provide liquid funds to banks so that account holders, including essential business's like hospitals, farmers, and factories can

Mortgages and by extension rent provide liquid funds to banks so that account holders, including essential business's like hospitals, farmers, and factories can pay their employees and bills. You are delusional to think it is possible to suspend payments without printing massive amounts of money that will certainly lead to more death.

pjc50 7y ago
shrug we provided liquidity last time and can do so again. Money printing doesn't kill people, viruses do. The banks are intermediaries. The essential businesses are not affected provided we do not let the banks fail randomly, and there is no need to do that.
- tathougies 7y ago
  Last time we had nowhere near the need for liquidity. There were bad mortgages, but they were the minority. Currency inflation kills. Look at venezuela. You cannot shrug this off. At least consider the effects.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing > By March 2009, it held $1.75 trillion of bank debt, mortgage-backed securities, and Treasury notes; this amount reached a peak of $2.1 trillion in June 2010. That feels like a lot of liquidity to me. Liquidity expansion through loans and purchase of credit and equity instruments simply isn't very inflationary. It can only cause real price inflation if the money starts chasing a shortage of real goods and services - which are currently being dramatically underproduced. If it does start causing inflation, the Fed can and will simply raise interest rates from their current near-zero level. Or fiscal policy can be used. Venezuela is under sanctions which are intended to exacerbate the situation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_sanctions_during_the_Venezuelan_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_sanctions_during...
    - tathougies 7y ago
      Yes, quantitative easing is okay. But that is a lot different than the direct money being given to individuals and businesses by Congress. Especially the direct payments to individuals means printing money. What the fed is doing is printing money now that will be destroyed later, or held in reserve. Either way, it is backed by actual financial instruments (whatever equity or bonds or notes they're buying).
Frondo 7y ago
People do not need liquidity to survive. They need air, water, food, medicine, shelter, in decreasing order of importance. No one has ever died for lack of liquidity. We've done a middling job at making sure people have air and water, less good with food and even worse with shelter and medicine. But liquidity? That should be last on the list of things to worry about. It should always be last.

pjc50 7y ago

shrug we provided liquidity last time and can do so again. Money printing doesn't kill people, viruses do. The banks are intermediaries. The essential businesses are not affected provided we do not let the banks fail randomly, and there is no need to do that.

tathougies 7y ago
Last time we had nowhere near the need for liquidity. There were bad mortgages, but they were the minority. Currency inflation kills. Look at venezuela. You cannot shrug this off. At least consider the effects.
- pjc50 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing > By March 2009, it held $1.75 trillion of bank debt, mortgage-backed securities, and Treasury notes; this amount reached a peak of $2.1 trillion in June 2010. That feels like a lot of liquidity to me. Liquidity expansion through loans and purchase of credit and equity instruments simply isn't very inflationary. It can only cause real price inflation if the money starts chasing a shortage of real goods and services - which are currently being dramatically underproduced. If it does start causing inflation, the Fed can and will simply raise interest rates from their current near-zero level. Or fiscal policy can be used. Venezuela is under sanctions which are intended to exacerbate the situation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_sanctions_during_the_Venezuelan_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_sanctions_during...
  - tathougies 7y ago
    Yes, quantitative easing is okay. But that is a lot different than the direct money being given to individuals and businesses by Congress. Especially the direct payments to individuals means printing money. What the fed is doing is printing money now that will be destroyed later, or held in reserve. Either way, it is backed by actual financial instruments (whatever equity or bonds or notes they're buying).

Frondo 7y ago

People do not need liquidity to survive. They need air, water, food, medicine, shelter, in decreasing order of importance. No one has ever died for lack of liquidity. We've done a middling job at making sure people have air and water, less good with food and even worse with shelter and medicine. But liquidity? That should be last on the list of things to worry about. It should always be last.