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Devil's advocate: is this altogether a bad thing? Hear me out (thought experiment). COVID relief wasn't supposed to be welfare. Its purpose could be viewed as b
by hammock 5y ago
Devil's advocate: is this altogether a bad thing? Hear me out (thought experiment). COVID relief wasn't supposed to be welfare. Its purpose could be viewed as being not a safety net, but rather compensation for allowing the economy to be shut down.
In that sense, it makes sense that much of the recompense goes to the people who were asked to shutter their businesses, put up signage and buy new equipment and reduce capacity, make their employees check vax cards at the door, etc.
"Relief" could be a misnomer for a fair payment in return for cooperation with a government lockdown program.
- ClumsyPilot 5y agoBy the same logic, when British Empire made slavery illegal, they owed reparations not to people they enslaved, but to business owner's who could no longer keep slaves and lost their 'assets'. Is that the logic we want?
- cryptonector 5y agoWhich is in fact what the British did when they ended slavery.
- space_fountain 5y agoThough to be fair you can make a very compelling argument that that wasn't the most moral choice
- naasking 5y agoAvoiding a civil revolt and the subsequent death count probably undercuts any such claim to morality, if we're using "human suffering" as the metric.
- lotsofpulp 5y agoThere may have been a population with more human suffering than former slave owners.
- TheCoelacanth 5y agoBut that suffering wasn't increased by paying off the former slave owners. If anything, it may have reduced it by making it politically feasible to end slavery earlier.
- kristopolous 5y agoHave any evidence? For example, a parliamentary compromise where such a trade-off is documented or something like that
- fastball 5y agoDo you?
- kristopolous 5y agoOf what? I'm not making any claims. We've got the internet at our fingertips. I'd hope progressing beyond speculation would be valued
- fastball 5y agoThe entire thread is speculation, doesn't seem very useful to ask one side for evidence without asking the other. If all you care about is people evidencing their claims, you probably should've asked at the first assertion, not the 2nd/3rd.
- kristopolous 5y agoThis was the one I was most interested in learning more about. I'm not part of this debate. I'm just curious
- scollet 5y agoSlavery apologists just keep getting more creative.
- naasking 5y agoI see uncharitable assumptions are still alive and well on the internet.
- cryptonector 5y agoNo doubt, but that was what the British did. I made only a statement of fact. Also, as you can see from the other replies, there were other considerations at the time. Compensation to the slave owners is morally repugnant, and yet the alternative might have also had morally repugnant consequences. In any case, that is what they did.
- space_fountain 5y agoNo I agree, and I think it made sense for you to reply with that honestly I might have had you not, but I think it is fair to say that it’s at least morally counter intuitive
- kbenson 5y ago> I think it is fair to say that it’s at least morally counter intuitive Only in that as a society, we seem to have decided (or come to through emergent behavior) that viewing sweeping socioeconomic changes and what might actually result from them with anything other than a cursory surface analysis is too much effort. :/
- hammock 5y ago>morally counter intuitive That is the insight that is why I started this comment thread in the first place. Honestly, I was hoping for more interesting discussion on HN from it than I got.
- koolba 5y agoSpending a 10s of millions of dollars to avoid 100s of thousand of deaths would be a deal many rationale people would be willing to make. It’s the ultimate ends justifying the means.
- hogrider 5y agoSure, if you agree with socialism for the rich and for the rich only this was great just like 2008.
- ChrisLomont 5y agoCitizens took home trillions this time around. The 2008 money was loans, that were paid back with interest. The citizens this time around got socialism (and related inflation). 2008 had neither.
- JaimeThompson 5y agoTrillions?
- jonas21 5y agoYes, trillions. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/09/covid-relief-bills-us-has-spent-most-of-coronavirus-aid-money.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/09/covid-relief-bills-us-has-sp...
- JaimeThompson 5y agoThat is the total amount spent not the amount that citizens took home.
- jonas21 5y agoHave a look at the first chart in the article. It shows $844B in stimulus checks and $666B in enhanced unemployment benefits. That alone is $1.5T paid directly to citizens, even without counting anything else.
- ChrisLomont 5y agoRead the article 844B stimulus checks, 666B unemployment compensation, 145B other income security, 828B for paycheck protection (money lent to business to pay paychecks - goes to the people nearly as directly as the stimulus, and allows business to stay afloat).... It doesn't count the tax credits and other things that added to citizens handouts. A lot of the other categories went also directly to paying citizens. Read some about what happened.
- newbie789 5y agoThis is the funniest post. Devil’s advocate, hear me out (thought experiment), what if the economy is made up of people other than business owners? What if economic function needs both businesses and individuals to survive? Where, out of curiosity, did you find the objective fact that the free money giveaway wasn’t meant to be welfare? It certainly helped a lot of people… fare… better? Is it possible that a person could be made so averse to the idea of “welfare” through conditioning that, when they see it plainly in front of them, their knee-jerk reaction is to invent a whole new reality to justify making sure the biggest benefactors of society remains squarely “those who need it least“? If you took your stimulus, or a PPP loan, or avoided eviction due to moratorium, or were in any way given a tiny sliver of help directly or indirectly using government funds, you are a welfare recipient. You can no longer claim having pulled yourself up by your bootstraps! Ever! The thought is so painful to so many Americans that they literally would rather just starve at the feet of the rich out of some fever-dream version of earned righteousness.