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I agree they had to spend the money to prevent a depression. I don’t think anyone is here contesting the amount of money unleashed. However, I am really disappo

by lvl100 5y ago

I agree they had to spend the money to prevent a depression. I don’t think anyone is here contesting the amount of money unleashed. However, I am really disappointed with where that money went. It went into “non-productive” assets and activities.

dijonman2 5y ago
I contest the amount: it was excessive.
SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
I’m confused what you mean by non-productive in this sense. In my country, the vast majority of aid money was in the form of massive “loans” to companies that were later forgiven presumably to avoid them going under/bankrupt.
- sgerenser 5y ago
  A lot of money in the US went to businesses through the PPP and similar programs. That was mostly a good thing as far as keeping businesses from closing or laying off workers. But I think pumping up non-productive assets was the second-order effect, where tons of stimulus money that people didn’t need immediately got dumped into speculative stocks, real estate, etc. the alternative would have been keeping it in savings accounts earning 0.01% while you saw all your friends “getting rich” YOLOing on meme stocks.
- wowokay 5y ago
  Non productive would be referring to stimulus checks and child tax credit money in the US, you will hear stories about families making 10-15k and using it for Disney trips, all that did was incentivize not working and paying of people that made the decision to have to many kids. It’s also caused the bottom of he job market to see increased pay while the middle and upper markets get pay decreases in the form on inflation. All in all not worth it IMO.
  - SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
    My understanding was that the stimulus checks and child tax credit were not remotely a majority of the money spent; that most of it went to corporations.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - bingbingbong 5y ago
    Bolstering the bottom of the distribution in advance of inflation/recession seems like an amazing outcome to me.
onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
My problem is - there are sooooo many things that need done in this country. I am not sure why everyone thinks it is cruel and unusual punishment to ask people to do some of those things that need done (burying power lines in cities, as one example) in exchange for money. Why is it so barbaric to give people a job? Theoretically, there are plenty of low-skilled workers that could've been trained to do needed skilled work during this time - instead of waiting 3 months for low-skilled labor demand to pick back up. Now - for the rest of their lives - they could be high skilled laborers. Instead, we paid people to just wait. I agree that it was better than doing nothing.
- lvl100 5y ago
  Agreed. We desperately need a few large scale public projects. But the country (US) is so divided that no one’s going to agree to anything that selectively benefits one region over another.
  - galangalalgol 5y ago
    Our large scale public projects always seem to end up being villified due to massive overuns, nepotism, embezzlement, and at best mismanagement. It typically benefits one small area too. If we want public opinion to change on these efforts, we need to change the track record to build trust for bigger and bigger projects.
    - onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
      It's hard to argue that the space program was only good for Florida. Or that the Manhattan Project was only good for New Mexico and Washington.
      - galangalalgol 5y ago
        You are right to point out that MIC related projects like those helped society. And so did the internet, obviously. But infrastructure projects like the big dig are far more common at various scales across the US. Typically they increase the value of land owned by sponsors or relatives of sponsors of the effort, or hire a series of contractors with relationships to the sponsor.

by lvl100 5y ago

dijonman2 5y ago

I contest the amount: it was excessive.

SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago

I’m confused what you mean by non-productive in this sense. In my country, the vast majority of aid money was in the form of massive “loans” to companies that were later forgiven presumably to avoid them going under/bankrupt.

sgerenser 5y ago
A lot of money in the US went to businesses through the PPP and similar programs. That was mostly a good thing as far as keeping businesses from closing or laying off workers. But I think pumping up non-productive assets was the second-order effect, where tons of stimulus money that people didn’t need immediately got dumped into speculative stocks, real estate, etc. the alternative would have been keeping it in savings accounts earning 0.01% while you saw all your friends “getting rich” YOLOing on meme stocks.
wowokay 5y ago
Non productive would be referring to stimulus checks and child tax credit money in the US, you will hear stories about families making 10-15k and using it for Disney trips, all that did was incentivize not working and paying of people that made the decision to have to many kids. It’s also caused the bottom of he job market to see increased pay while the middle and upper markets get pay decreases in the form on inflation. All in all not worth it IMO.
- SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
  My understanding was that the stimulus checks and child tax credit were not remotely a majority of the money spent; that most of it went to corporations.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- bingbingbong 5y ago
  Bolstering the bottom of the distribution in advance of inflation/recession seems like an amazing outcome to me.

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago

My problem is - there are sooooo many things that need done in this country. I am not sure why everyone thinks it is cruel and unusual punishment to ask people to do some of those things that need done (burying power lines in cities, as one example) in exchange for money. Why is it so barbaric to give people a job? Theoretically, there are plenty of low-skilled workers that could've been trained to do needed skilled work during this time - instead of waiting 3 months for low-skilled labor demand to pick back up. Now - for the rest of their lives - they could be high skilled laborers. Instead, we paid people to just wait. I agree that it was better than doing nothing.

lvl100 5y ago
Agreed. We desperately need a few large scale public projects. But the country (US) is so divided that no one’s going to agree to anything that selectively benefits one region over another.
- galangalalgol 5y ago
  Our large scale public projects always seem to end up being villified due to massive overuns, nepotism, embezzlement, and at best mismanagement. It typically benefits one small area too. If we want public opinion to change on these efforts, we need to change the track record to build trust for bigger and bigger projects.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
    It's hard to argue that the space program was only good for Florida. Or that the Manhattan Project was only good for New Mexico and Washington.
    - galangalalgol 5y ago
      You are right to point out that MIC related projects like those helped society. And so did the internet, obviously. But infrastructure projects like the big dig are far more common at various scales across the US. Typically they increase the value of land owned by sponsors or relatives of sponsors of the effort, or hire a series of contractors with relationships to the sponsor.