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You are the one that is naive. I will translate. You want to keep kicking the can down the road, so that someone that isn't you will hold the bag. Because some

You are the one that is naive. I will translate. You want to keep kicking the can down the road, so that someone that isn't you will hold the bag. Because someone will hold the bag for all this, and it isn't fair. So? Life isn't fair. Pandemics happen, and the government can't possibly bail out everyone. He's right. Add a UBI and nationalize healthcare. It's not complicated; the elites just don't want it. The ones like you.

kovacs 6y ago
Perhaps you can translate for me too, because I read the reply and agreed that the risk appetite for new small business owners might not be as robust given the current set of rules, which is what the commenter was saying. At least that's my interpretation. You seem to see something else in this comment. As a result I have some clarification questions... How do they want to "keep kicking the can down the road" exactly? Your comment about the government not being able to bail out everyone only serves to reinforce the point about the risk of starting a small business. What do you mean by "He's right"? He's right that people will line up to start new businesses and put their diminished life savings on the line after what's transpired? Then you flippantly say "Add UBI and nationalized healthcare", as if it's just something you add to a shopping cart and "it's not complicated". So it sounds like you assume these features as part of the assumption that people will flock to starting businesses. That's not part of the discussion at all, but it's an interesting point to discuss whether that would spur the activity. It very well might as it's the "social safety net" one would need to have more confidence. About the only thing you said that resonated with me is "the elites just don't want it". Given the growing wealth disparity and the relative flat to down real income of the average American in the last 40 years I'd say that's a fair statement. Your final statement comes out of nowhere as you lump the commenter into this group of elites when all they were saying is "hey man, I'm not so sure people will be lining up to risk their life savings to start a small business". Care to try again with a gentler, more constructive tone and explain how the commenter, and by extension myself, are naive with the summarized viewpoint I stated at the outset?
- engineeringwoke 6y ago
  It's not an opinion. I'm an engineer who also trained as an economist, and I know the answers to these questions. It's just math. It's all about the money supply. The elite want to bail out because it inflates the money supply. You can bail in instead of bail out. Bankruptcies happen and equity holders lose, but the problem is that bankruptices reduce the money supply. Money effectively disappears when debt is restructured. The problem we now face is that equity holders today have decided that bail outs are necessary politically. Equity is the most speculative ownership of productive capacity, but you wouldn't guess it with the way it's discussed. Wouldn't you expect that that kind of security to lose value in an unforeseen circumstance like this? The system eventually doesn't function if the government hamfistedly tries to alter price discovery to such an extent that markets stop working. That's where we are today. So bail in. Give everyone free money. I give you an ID number and a bank account number, and I receive cash every month. That's a hell of lot simpler. Nationalize healthcare. Wouldn't a nationalized system be simpler? The lines of code per person have to be higher in a country with fifty different systems. It will cause inflation, but we don't really have a choice. Sorry if my tone is a bit flippant, but someone has to argue for sanity here. The United States is going down a dark path in nationalizing so many USD assets. Somebody has to try to explain why.
  - DuskStar 6y ago
    > It's not an opinion. I'm an engineer who also trained as an economist, and I know the answers to these questions. It's just math. Considering how many economists seem to disagree on what the proper response here is, I highly doubt it's just math. And regarding nationalizing healthcare... That's a whole truck full of worms, and seems unrelated to an economic recovery. Couldn't you also argue that seeing the government nationalize an entire industry would decrease entrepreneurial spirit in other industries in fear of the same thing happening there?
    - engineeringwoke 6y ago
      I'm not an academic that likes to write up econometric models with 40 years of data to make myself feel smart, so I am not so ignorant to reality. It really is just math. Every dollar we waste today on unproductive capacities is a dollar that your children will never have.
jandrewrogers 6y ago
I'm not sure what you are going on about, you read far more into my post than I actually wrote. No policy action was promoted or implied. My point is that the assumption that most small business owners will be able to reboot their businesses when the economic shutdown ends is almost certainly not true due to the mass destruction of their working capital. No one said anything about fairness or bailing them out, just about the unrealistic expectation that these people will be able to start new businesses, so that life will go back to normal for their customers, or that millions of people that have never run a small business will have a sudden desire to fill that gap. Many jobs will be disappearing as a result. Another poster suggested what is likely to happen and I already see the wheels turning in my city: cash-rich investors/companies will swoop in to pick the carcasses of dead or distressed small businesses, acquiring the assets of the best ones at a steep discount to what would have been required pre-shutdown. That is a poor outcome for small business owners and will change their risk calculus going forward.

kovacs 6y ago

Perhaps you can translate for me too, because I read the reply and agreed that the risk appetite for new small business owners might not be as robust given the current set of rules, which is what the commenter was saying. At least that's my interpretation. You seem to see something else in this comment. As a result I have some clarification questions... How do they want to "keep kicking the can down the road" exactly? Your comment about the government not being able to bail out everyone only serves to reinforce the point about the risk of starting a small business. What do you mean by "He's right"? He's right that people will line up to start new businesses and put their diminished life savings on the line after what's transpired? Then you flippantly say "Add UBI and nationalized healthcare", as if it's just something you add to a shopping cart and "it's not complicated". So it sounds like you assume these features as part of the assumption that people will flock to starting businesses. That's not part of the discussion at all, but it's an interesting point to discuss whether that would spur the activity. It very well might as it's the "social safety net" one would need to have more confidence. About the only thing you said that resonated with me is "the elites just don't want it". Given the growing wealth disparity and the relative flat to down real income of the average American in the last 40 years I'd say that's a fair statement. Your final statement comes out of nowhere as you lump the commenter into this group of elites when all they were saying is "hey man, I'm not so sure people will be lining up to risk their life savings to start a small business". Care to try again with a gentler, more constructive tone and explain how the commenter, and by extension myself, are naive with the summarized viewpoint I stated at the outset?

engineeringwoke 6y ago
It's not an opinion. I'm an engineer who also trained as an economist, and I know the answers to these questions. It's just math. It's all about the money supply. The elite want to bail out because it inflates the money supply. You can bail in instead of bail out. Bankruptcies happen and equity holders lose, but the problem is that bankruptices reduce the money supply. Money effectively disappears when debt is restructured. The problem we now face is that equity holders today have decided that bail outs are necessary politically. Equity is the most speculative ownership of productive capacity, but you wouldn't guess it with the way it's discussed. Wouldn't you expect that that kind of security to lose value in an unforeseen circumstance like this? The system eventually doesn't function if the government hamfistedly tries to alter price discovery to such an extent that markets stop working. That's where we are today. So bail in. Give everyone free money. I give you an ID number and a bank account number, and I receive cash every month. That's a hell of lot simpler. Nationalize healthcare. Wouldn't a nationalized system be simpler? The lines of code per person have to be higher in a country with fifty different systems. It will cause inflation, but we don't really have a choice. Sorry if my tone is a bit flippant, but someone has to argue for sanity here. The United States is going down a dark path in nationalizing so many USD assets. Somebody has to try to explain why.
- DuskStar 6y ago
  > It's not an opinion. I'm an engineer who also trained as an economist, and I know the answers to these questions. It's just math. Considering how many economists seem to disagree on what the proper response here is, I highly doubt it's just math. And regarding nationalizing healthcare... That's a whole truck full of worms, and seems unrelated to an economic recovery. Couldn't you also argue that seeing the government nationalize an entire industry would decrease entrepreneurial spirit in other industries in fear of the same thing happening there?
  - engineeringwoke 6y ago
    I'm not an academic that likes to write up econometric models with 40 years of data to make myself feel smart, so I am not so ignorant to reality. It really is just math. Every dollar we waste today on unproductive capacities is a dollar that your children will never have.

jandrewrogers 6y ago

I'm not sure what you are going on about, you read far more into my post than I actually wrote. No policy action was promoted or implied. My point is that the assumption that most small business owners will be able to reboot their businesses when the economic shutdown ends is almost certainly not true due to the mass destruction of their working capital. No one said anything about fairness or bailing them out, just about the unrealistic expectation that these people will be able to start new businesses, so that life will go back to normal for their customers, or that millions of people that have never run a small business will have a sudden desire to fill that gap. Many jobs will be disappearing as a result. Another poster suggested what is likely to happen and I already see the wheels turning in my city: cash-rich investors/companies will swoop in to pick the carcasses of dead or distressed small businesses, acquiring the assets of the best ones at a steep discount to what would have been required pre-shutdown. That is a poor outcome for small business owners and will change their risk calculus going forward.