12 ms·

Our Quantitative easing and corporate bailouts are in the trillions, why would we not pay out significantly less for people who are struggling to find jobs? Why

by hobs 6y ago

Our Quantitative easing and corporate bailouts are in the trillions, why would we not pay out significantly less for people who are struggling to find jobs? Why does the till start counting when its normal people affected?

tkeAmarktinClss 6y ago
The bailout have totally changed my mind on why you should work for a fortune 500 company Individuals will never have political power like a billion dollar corporation. If you can rise up the ranks, you get some of this power. Sure it's a moonshot, but how many self made people make billion dollar companies? You could count them. I think I'm going to pick a major fortune 500 and leach off it. Even if I hang around there for 30 years, I get profits and tax payers will subsidize the losses.
- chasd00 6y ago
  i've sort of came to this conclusion too. I've spent most of my career in the small biz and startup world. I'm over worrying about the fate of the entire company every hour of the day. I have a family and these days I just want a paycheck that isn't late, a 401k, and PTO. Maybe i'm officially old... or maybe just more wise ha.
- jschwartzi 6y ago
  The medical insurance is typically really good too. When my fiancé quit her job due to the hazards of working retail it turned out that for only 200 more a month we could retain her insurance and shave 12000 off the cost of having a baby. They pay for IVF too if we need it which is normally a six figure procedure. Having a baby was otherwise so expensive we weren’t sure we could afford it.
  - greedo 6y ago
    IVF shouldn't cost six figures. When we did it, it was about $12K.
    - jschwartzi 6y ago
      That's about what it cost my friends.
      - greedo 6y ago
        As I commented, we didn't pay that much. https://www.verywellfamily.com/how-much-does-ivf-cost-1960212#:~:text=The%20average%20cost%20for%20one,high%20as%20%243%2C000%20per%20cycle https://www.verywellfamily.com/how-much-does-ivf-cost-196021.... The drugs are separate, but I think we paid around $5K for them. Now if you're unlucky, you might have to go through multiple cycles, but our specialist only charged us the base cost. We had to pay for the additional drugs however.
- greedo 6y ago
  My employer isn't public, but is a large insurance company. The issues with working for a large company is bureaucracy and corporate lethargy. Of course this depends on your team, the company, etc. And while you might have job security, that can be tenuous as well. Really just depends on how savvy you are at promoting yourself and managing up.
packetlost 6y ago
Because bailouts (usually) make the government money in the long run. They're in the form of low-interest loans, they aren't just handing out money to corporations.
- eli_gottlieb 6y ago
  Nonetheless, bailouts come with the social cost of increasing market concentration and moral hazard.
- hobs 6y ago
  Do you think subsidizing the poor enough so our economy doesn't have to choose between immediately collapsing and killing the poor wouldn't save us an enormous set of costs?
  - bradstewart 6y ago
    I absolutely think we should do that. The problem is it's extremely hard to quantify that cost/gain, while its extremely easy to quantity the cost/gain of low-interest loans. Not to say its impossible, or that we shouldn't try--we should. But when you have a bunch of senators arguing, it's easier to point to the easy numbers.
    - dlp211 6y ago
      Why do we need to quantify it?
      - panzagl 6y ago
        Because we shouldn't spend tax money on solutions that show no gain or make things worse for the country as a whole.
        pphysch 6y ago
        Last 75 years of foreign & drug wars: https://i.redd.it/b4rgt6ovw7k31.jpg https://i.redd.it/b4rgt6ovw7k31.jpg
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
> why would we not pay out significantly less for people who are struggling to find jobs? The CARES act allocated most of the money to individuals, state and local governments, public health, and education initiatives. The amount given to large corporations (much in the form of loans that will be paid back) is less than that given to individuals: NPR has a good breakdown. The idea that corporations are receiving “trillions” in cash payments is a myth. https://www.npr.org/2020/03/26/821457551/whats-inside-the-senate-s-2-trillion-coronavirus-aid-package https://www.npr.org/2020/03/26/821457551/whats-inside-the-se... I fully agree that the allocation and lack of oversight around the funds to corporations is not good, but it’s incorrect to suggest that trillions are going to corporations or that more money is going to corporations than individuals under this bill. Furthermore, you can’t compare loans and measures like quantitative easing to cash payments like that. Giving someone a cash payment and giving a loan to a business have very different actual costs in the long-run, obviously.
- gregwebs 6y ago
  That breakdown is missing the trillion dollars of corporate debt that the fed is now engaging in purchasing. Correction: in terms of direct corporate debt purchase, they have currently committed to less than half a trillion dollars of purchases independent of the CARES act. But the breakdown is also missing $210 billion of reduced corporate taxes! The CARES act is a good attempt at providing fair outcomes for everyone, but that is just one of the things the fed is funding. Take a look at their balance sheet from their own website: it went up over 2 trillion in the blink of an eye and they are not done yet: https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttrends.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren... There are winners and losers in what is going on now, and corporate America is without doubt the biggest winner. By proxy, the wealthiest Americans that are the biggest owners of the financial assets the fed is supporting are also the biggest winners. Since we are accomplishing all this by printing money, those that don't win lose even more because their dollars are worth less. The long-term result on the current course will be even greater wealth disparity between the rich and the poor. You might have noticed many people complaining about this wealth disparity during the recent economic recovery in which the fed has added almost 4 trillion dollars to their balance sheet (again see the fed's chart). These wealth gaps historically lead to populism, which gets us our current president.
andrewmutz 6y ago
That's not a fair comparison. QE are loans that get paid back, and bailouts are equity purchases. The government makes money on these programs. Stimulus payments are gifts, and the government loses money on them. To be clear, the stimulus payments are essential for helping people and are a great thing for the wider economy. But you can't compare them dollar-for-dollar, as they are not like each other.
- throwanem 6y ago
  When was profitability added to governments' remit?
  - andrewmutz 6y ago
    The government is not chartered to make money, but that's frequently a side effect of lending and equity. You can see the numbers here from the last bailout: https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/ https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/ The government handed out $634B. The government recouped $390B + $364B = $754B. So, $120B profit. Again, I'm not saying we should bailout corporations and ignore the little guy. The stimulus checks are critical. But you can't compare them dollar for dollar.
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
    It's not profitability for profitability's sake. It's a positive number on a budget balance sheet. At the end of the day, they have some kind of budget to spend on stuff. The sum of the expenses has to fit the budget. If this comes out as a net positive, they can spend more elsewhere, like on unemployment benefits or schools or whatever else they're planning to need money for in the future.
    - Armisael16 6y ago
      > The sum of the expenses has to fit the budget. Is this actually the case? They have a money printer. What’s the problem with using it, as long as inflation stays low? I mean, I suppose technically seigniorage is part of the budget but then your statement is just a statement of definitions, not an insight.
Melting_Harps 6y ago
> Our Quantitative easing and corporate bailouts are in the trillions, why would we not pay out significantly less for people who are struggling to find jobs? Why does the till start counting when its normal people affected? Seriously, this is just bleating, tired banker/cronyist narrative we've always seen when the Economy blows up like in 2008; there are billions/trillions for Bankers destroying the economy but if that is re-directed to the People who have lost their jobs because of State incompetence hell breaks loose--I worked in Culinary so I'm one of those, but I have a diverse skill-set so I can pivot unlike mnay of my co-workers. Also, I've been immersed in the Hong Kong struggle since 2014, and when this mystery pandemic kicked off in mid-January and the CCP was forcing borders open there and dissappearing journalists, citizens and punishing physicians I knew the spread was going to happen if all nations didn't contain it as China was not going to. Flash forward to February and the CCD did this despite what was coming out in PUBLIC MEDIA: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/public-health/2020/03/02/coronavirus-patient-mistakenly-released-from-isolation-in-san-antonio-before-testing-positive-for-illness-mayor-says/ https://www.dallasnews.com/news/public-health/2020/03/02/cor... https://ktla.com/news/nationworld/wuhan-evacuee-released-from-quarantine-in-texas-later-tested-positive-for-coronavirus/ https://ktla.com/news/nationworld/wuhan-evacuee-released-fro... Hong Kong was already quarantining by mid Janurary and their economy and the protests started to decrease due to the influx of Mainlanders invading HK and overwhelming the Medical Industry. The fact that this spread throughout the rest of the World was an inevitability as travel remained, I was personally in San Antonio when they released those people from Wuhan on my way back from Boca Chica headed back to Colorado. This is State incompetence at its most extreme sense and should be just as a stark wake up call as Police Brutality was for Society; the fact is this is a scale issue, not an individual party one should not be ignored. There was no way anyone would accept a shutdown of the Economy of any significant size,or even on a logistical level even when they were gawking at Wuhan leaked videos in early January and commenting on Social Media about it. The only ones that did were small city-states like Hong Kong, Taiwan and larger island nations like New Zealand and South Korea who are on constant alarm due to N. Korean and CCP interference and constant missile alarms so knew how to mobolize when needed--a very undesirable.miserable thing when you realize the SK population is 41 million, or roughly that of California. In summary: some would have you believe that the People, especially those who have had their Industry and entire Life's work destroyed, don't deserve to have financial support but are often those who pay the most in real terms for the ever increase in taxes/cost of living. But God-forbid the Jamie Dimon's or Lloyd Blankfein's of the World go without their corporate welfare. F-them, seriously: even when Dimon/JP Morgan came out in support of Bitcoin I only hoped he gets his much deserved comeuppance soon.

by hobs 6y ago

tkeAmarktinClss 6y ago

The bailout have totally changed my mind on why you should work for a fortune 500 company Individuals will never have political power like a billion dollar corporation. If you can rise up the ranks, you get some of this power. Sure it's a moonshot, but how many self made people make billion dollar companies? You could count them. I think I'm going to pick a major fortune 500 and leach off it. Even if I hang around there for 30 years, I get profits and tax payers will subsidize the losses.

chasd00 6y ago
i've sort of came to this conclusion too. I've spent most of my career in the small biz and startup world. I'm over worrying about the fate of the entire company every hour of the day. I have a family and these days I just want a paycheck that isn't late, a 401k, and PTO. Maybe i'm officially old... or maybe just more wise ha.
jschwartzi 6y ago
The medical insurance is typically really good too. When my fiancé quit her job due to the hazards of working retail it turned out that for only 200 more a month we could retain her insurance and shave 12000 off the cost of having a baby. They pay for IVF too if we need it which is normally a six figure procedure. Having a baby was otherwise so expensive we weren’t sure we could afford it.
- greedo 6y ago
  IVF shouldn't cost six figures. When we did it, it was about $12K.
  - jschwartzi 6y ago
    That's about what it cost my friends.
    - greedo 6y ago
      As I commented, we didn't pay that much. https://www.verywellfamily.com/how-much-does-ivf-cost-1960212#:~:text=The%20average%20cost%20for%20one,high%20as%20%243%2C000%20per%20cycle https://www.verywellfamily.com/how-much-does-ivf-cost-196021.... The drugs are separate, but I think we paid around $5K for them. Now if you're unlucky, you might have to go through multiple cycles, but our specialist only charged us the base cost. We had to pay for the additional drugs however.
greedo 6y ago
My employer isn't public, but is a large insurance company. The issues with working for a large company is bureaucracy and corporate lethargy. Of course this depends on your team, the company, etc. And while you might have job security, that can be tenuous as well. Really just depends on how savvy you are at promoting yourself and managing up.

packetlost 6y ago

Because bailouts (usually) make the government money in the long run. They're in the form of low-interest loans, they aren't just handing out money to corporations.

eli_gottlieb 6y ago
Nonetheless, bailouts come with the social cost of increasing market concentration and moral hazard.
hobs 6y ago
Do you think subsidizing the poor enough so our economy doesn't have to choose between immediately collapsing and killing the poor wouldn't save us an enormous set of costs?
- bradstewart 6y ago
  I absolutely think we should do that. The problem is it's extremely hard to quantify that cost/gain, while its extremely easy to quantity the cost/gain of low-interest loans. Not to say its impossible, or that we shouldn't try--we should. But when you have a bunch of senators arguing, it's easier to point to the easy numbers.
  - dlp211 6y ago
    Why do we need to quantify it?
    - panzagl 6y ago
      Because we shouldn't spend tax money on solutions that show no gain or make things worse for the country as a whole.
      - pphysch 6y ago
        Last 75 years of foreign & drug wars: https://i.redd.it/b4rgt6ovw7k31.jpg https://i.redd.it/b4rgt6ovw7k31.jpg

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

> why would we not pay out significantly less for people who are struggling to find jobs? The CARES act allocated most of the money to individuals, state and local governments, public health, and education initiatives. The amount given to large corporations (much in the form of loans that will be paid back) is less than that given to individuals: NPR has a good breakdown. The idea that corporations are receiving “trillions” in cash payments is a myth. https://www.npr.org/2020/03/26/821457551/whats-inside-the-senate-s-2-trillion-coronavirus-aid-package https://www.npr.org/2020/03/26/821457551/whats-inside-the-se... I fully agree that the allocation and lack of oversight around the funds to corporations is not good, but it’s incorrect to suggest that trillions are going to corporations or that more money is going to corporations than individuals under this bill. Furthermore, you can’t compare loans and measures like quantitative easing to cash payments like that. Giving someone a cash payment and giving a loan to a business have very different actual costs in the long-run, obviously.

gregwebs 6y ago
That breakdown is missing the trillion dollars of corporate debt that the fed is now engaging in purchasing. Correction: in terms of direct corporate debt purchase, they have currently committed to less than half a trillion dollars of purchases independent of the CARES act. But the breakdown is also missing $210 billion of reduced corporate taxes! The CARES act is a good attempt at providing fair outcomes for everyone, but that is just one of the things the fed is funding. Take a look at their balance sheet from their own website: it went up over 2 trillion in the blink of an eye and they are not done yet: https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttrends.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren... There are winners and losers in what is going on now, and corporate America is without doubt the biggest winner. By proxy, the wealthiest Americans that are the biggest owners of the financial assets the fed is supporting are also the biggest winners. Since we are accomplishing all this by printing money, those that don't win lose even more because their dollars are worth less. The long-term result on the current course will be even greater wealth disparity between the rich and the poor. You might have noticed many people complaining about this wealth disparity during the recent economic recovery in which the fed has added almost 4 trillion dollars to their balance sheet (again see the fed's chart). These wealth gaps historically lead to populism, which gets us our current president.

andrewmutz 6y ago

That's not a fair comparison. QE are loans that get paid back, and bailouts are equity purchases. The government makes money on these programs. Stimulus payments are gifts, and the government loses money on them. To be clear, the stimulus payments are essential for helping people and are a great thing for the wider economy. But you can't compare them dollar-for-dollar, as they are not like each other.

throwanem 6y ago
When was profitability added to governments' remit?
- andrewmutz 6y ago
  The government is not chartered to make money, but that's frequently a side effect of lending and equity. You can see the numbers here from the last bailout: https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/ https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/ The government handed out $634B. The government recouped $390B + $364B = $754B. So, $120B profit. Again, I'm not saying we should bailout corporations and ignore the little guy. The stimulus checks are critical. But you can't compare them dollar for dollar.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
  It's not profitability for profitability's sake. It's a positive number on a budget balance sheet. At the end of the day, they have some kind of budget to spend on stuff. The sum of the expenses has to fit the budget. If this comes out as a net positive, they can spend more elsewhere, like on unemployment benefits or schools or whatever else they're planning to need money for in the future.
  - Armisael16 6y ago
    > The sum of the expenses has to fit the budget. Is this actually the case? They have a money printer. What’s the problem with using it, as long as inflation stays low? I mean, I suppose technically seigniorage is part of the budget but then your statement is just a statement of definitions, not an insight.

Melting_Harps 6y ago

> Our Quantitative easing and corporate bailouts are in the trillions, why would we not pay out significantly less for people who are struggling to find jobs? Why does the till start counting when its normal people affected? Seriously, this is just bleating, tired banker/cronyist narrative we've always seen when the Economy blows up like in 2008; there are billions/trillions for Bankers destroying the economy but if that is re-directed to the People who have lost their jobs because of State incompetence hell breaks loose--I worked in Culinary so I'm one of those, but I have a diverse skill-set so I can pivot unlike mnay of my co-workers. Also, I've been immersed in the Hong Kong struggle since 2014, and when this mystery pandemic kicked off in mid-January and the CCP was forcing borders open there and dissappearing journalists, citizens and punishing physicians I knew the spread was going to happen if all nations didn't contain it as China was not going to. Flash forward to February and the CCD did this despite what was coming out in PUBLIC MEDIA: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/public-health/2020/03/02/coronavirus-patient-mistakenly-released-from-isolation-in-san-antonio-before-testing-positive-for-illness-mayor-says/ https://www.dallasnews.com/news/public-health/2020/03/02/cor... https://ktla.com/news/nationworld/wuhan-evacuee-released-from-quarantine-in-texas-later-tested-positive-for-coronavirus/ https://ktla.com/news/nationworld/wuhan-evacuee-released-fro... Hong Kong was already quarantining by mid Janurary and their economy and the protests started to decrease due to the influx of Mainlanders invading HK and overwhelming the Medical Industry. The fact that this spread throughout the rest of the World was an inevitability as travel remained, I was personally in San Antonio when they released those people from Wuhan on my way back from Boca Chica headed back to Colorado. This is State incompetence at its most extreme sense and should be just as a stark wake up call as Police Brutality was for Society; the fact is this is a scale issue, not an individual party one should not be ignored. There was no way anyone would accept a shutdown of the Economy of any significant size,or even on a logistical level even when they were gawking at Wuhan leaked videos in early January and commenting on Social Media about it. The only ones that did were small city-states like Hong Kong, Taiwan and larger island nations like New Zealand and South Korea who are on constant alarm due to N. Korean and CCP interference and constant missile alarms so knew how to mobolize when needed--a very undesirable.miserable thing when you realize the SK population is 41 million, or roughly that of California. In summary: some would have you believe that the People, especially those who have had their Industry and entire Life's work destroyed, don't deserve to have financial support but are often those who pay the most in real terms for the ever increase in taxes/cost of living. But God-forbid the Jamie Dimon's or Lloyd Blankfein's of the World go without their corporate welfare. F-them, seriously: even when Dimon/JP Morgan came out in support of Bitcoin I only hoped he gets his much deserved comeuppance soon.