5 ms·

The ruling class will not let money go directly to people, they prefer to use the "trickle down" illusion.

by coliveira 7y ago

nicbou 7y ago
Is there any backing to this claim beyond "it's pleasant to hear"?
- throwlaplace 7y ago
  yes - it's called history and not being blind to the forest over the trees. you can literally look back to the beginning of this country and see policies that were double speak. the revolutionary war itself was essentially theater for distracting poor people from the lucre of the wealthy[1]. we know this because that is the work of historians - to unearth the truth in retrospect. there are direct quotes from "founding fathers" about the intent of the war. it's also why, for example, native americans and slaves fought on the side of the british (both were promised freedom). [1] howard zinn's people's history of the united states
malandrew 7y ago
Going directly to people does not maintain jobs for people to return to. You know that saying about teaching a man how to fish. Saving the businesses is the same as grabbing the fishing rod so the fish don't pull it into the ocean and the man has no rod to return to. Giving it directly is giving the man a fish so he feeds himself for a day (something we are also doing with $1200 checks). If we don't grab the rod and save it, we're stuck feeding the man for many days, until there is another rod available to use. You may ask "Why not just buy the man a fishing rod?" Well because there is no rod and rods don't scale to support a population of 330 million people. We're past the point in our economy where everyone can sustain themselves solo. It's more like fishing nets (companies) that each require dozens to thousands of people to operate to pull in a catch. We're saving the fishing nets. We lose enough fishing nets and soon enough there won't be enough fish to collect as tax and redistribute to those we need to feed for a day. The ability to hand out anything at all is backed by the fishing nets and the people operating them. You need to save both.
- throwlaplace 7y ago
  >If we don't grab the rod and save it, we're stuck feeding the man for many days, until there is another rod available to use. the man doesn't have food now. not 6 months from now when your fishing line untangles. what do you do?
  - malandrew 7y ago
    Give them the minimum number of fish for them to survive as a stopgap (two $1200 checks, some extra conditional $600 checks and unemployment).
    - throwlaplace 7y ago
      these kinds of solutions always assume there isn't enough slack in the system to give more than the minimum when it's clearly not the case because all of the fed models have slippage factored in. but no when it's welfare absolutely every penny has to be accounted for. >some extra conditional $600 checks conditional on what? literacy? drug tests? skin color? why conditional at all?
      - malandrew 7y ago
        > conditional on what? I don't remember. I think it might have been for dependents. Go read the text of the first bailout bill. It's all there.
- phkahler 7y ago
  >> Going directly to people does not maintain jobs for people to return to. Normally it's the best way to inject money into the economy. Right now the best thing to do would be to suspend rents and debt repayment obligations.
  - malandrew 7y ago
    It's an idea and definitely worth exploring, but my gut tells me that that is both far easier said than done and it likely comes with many unintentional consequences that we should figure out first. One challenge is that the world is run by software. I have no clue how we would begin even modifying everything to account for such a dramatic change so broadly. Also, who do we suspend this for? Everyone? Only those that can't pay? This solution gets very messy very fast due to the layers upon layers of creditors, who themselves may have creditors. Among those creditors it's likely you can count both the American government and regular Americans (people with pensions and 401k's). One of the potential consequences that concerns me is what all those creditors do when this is all over? Is there any a new element of risk (suspension of payments) that gets priced in that makes all credit more expensive in perpetuity? Is more expensive credit in perpetuity more expensive than the solutions we're pursuing? Do the creditors pull out of the system entirely and move their money to systems that didn't suspend rent and debt repayment obligations? I really don't know, but doing that is uncharted waters that should not be taken lightly since there may be consequences worse than the solution we're pursuing. All the solutions are going to be imperfect. Generally those solutions that leave the machinery intact are easier to manage and reason about. Messing with the machinery in a time of crisis is generally inadvisable. It's the equivalent of changing code live in production.
dragonwriter 7y ago
If the ruling class didn't jealously guard access to power (of which wealth is a form) they wouldn't be the ruling class.

The ruling class will not let money go directly to people, they prefer to use the "trickle down" illusion.

nicbou 7y ago

Is there any backing to this claim beyond "it's pleasant to hear"?

throwlaplace 7y ago
yes - it's called history and not being blind to the forest over the trees. you can literally look back to the beginning of this country and see policies that were double speak. the revolutionary war itself was essentially theater for distracting poor people from the lucre of the wealthy[1]. we know this because that is the work of historians - to unearth the truth in retrospect. there are direct quotes from "founding fathers" about the intent of the war. it's also why, for example, native americans and slaves fought on the side of the british (both were promised freedom). [1] howard zinn's people's history of the united states

malandrew 7y ago

Going directly to people does not maintain jobs for people to return to. You know that saying about teaching a man how to fish. Saving the businesses is the same as grabbing the fishing rod so the fish don't pull it into the ocean and the man has no rod to return to. Giving it directly is giving the man a fish so he feeds himself for a day (something we are also doing with $1200 checks). If we don't grab the rod and save it, we're stuck feeding the man for many days, until there is another rod available to use. You may ask "Why not just buy the man a fishing rod?" Well because there is no rod and rods don't scale to support a population of 330 million people. We're past the point in our economy where everyone can sustain themselves solo. It's more like fishing nets (companies) that each require dozens to thousands of people to operate to pull in a catch. We're saving the fishing nets. We lose enough fishing nets and soon enough there won't be enough fish to collect as tax and redistribute to those we need to feed for a day. The ability to hand out anything at all is backed by the fishing nets and the people operating them. You need to save both.

throwlaplace 7y ago
>If we don't grab the rod and save it, we're stuck feeding the man for many days, until there is another rod available to use. the man doesn't have food now. not 6 months from now when your fishing line untangles. what do you do?
- malandrew 7y ago
  Give them the minimum number of fish for them to survive as a stopgap (two $1200 checks, some extra conditional $600 checks and unemployment).
  - throwlaplace 7y ago
    these kinds of solutions always assume there isn't enough slack in the system to give more than the minimum when it's clearly not the case because all of the fed models have slippage factored in. but no when it's welfare absolutely every penny has to be accounted for. >some extra conditional $600 checks conditional on what? literacy? drug tests? skin color? why conditional at all?
    - malandrew 7y ago
      > conditional on what? I don't remember. I think it might have been for dependents. Go read the text of the first bailout bill. It's all there.
phkahler 7y ago
>> Going directly to people does not maintain jobs for people to return to. Normally it's the best way to inject money into the economy. Right now the best thing to do would be to suspend rents and debt repayment obligations.
- malandrew 7y ago
  It's an idea and definitely worth exploring, but my gut tells me that that is both far easier said than done and it likely comes with many unintentional consequences that we should figure out first. One challenge is that the world is run by software. I have no clue how we would begin even modifying everything to account for such a dramatic change so broadly. Also, who do we suspend this for? Everyone? Only those that can't pay? This solution gets very messy very fast due to the layers upon layers of creditors, who themselves may have creditors. Among those creditors it's likely you can count both the American government and regular Americans (people with pensions and 401k's). One of the potential consequences that concerns me is what all those creditors do when this is all over? Is there any a new element of risk (suspension of payments) that gets priced in that makes all credit more expensive in perpetuity? Is more expensive credit in perpetuity more expensive than the solutions we're pursuing? Do the creditors pull out of the system entirely and move their money to systems that didn't suspend rent and debt repayment obligations? I really don't know, but doing that is uncharted waters that should not be taken lightly since there may be consequences worse than the solution we're pursuing. All the solutions are going to be imperfect. Generally those solutions that leave the machinery intact are easier to manage and reason about. Messing with the machinery in a time of crisis is generally inadvisable. It's the equivalent of changing code live in production.

dragonwriter 7y ago

If the ruling class didn't jealously guard access to power (of which wealth is a form) they wouldn't be the ruling class.