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A bunch of The Bachelor contestants were also caught taking borderline fraudulent PPP loans. https://pagesix.com/2021/06/28/tayshia-adams-and-more-bachel https

A bunch of The Bachelor contestants were also caught taking borderline fraudulent PPP loans. https://pagesix.com/2021/06/28/tayshia-adams-and-more-bachel https://pagesix.com/2021/06/28/tayshia-adams-and-more-bachel... If you had bothered to follow up on that, you would have learned that all of these Bachelor(ette) contestants employed other people and used the PPP loans to pay those salaries during the PPP period when their normal revenue streams were unavailable due to COVID restrictions (Tayisha Adams actually went into detail about how and why she used the loan in the linked article). Which was quite literally the point of the PPP loans. But I get that critical thinking is hard when you have an ideological point to make and you just want to shit talk other people. Guess what? A lot of tech companies also took out PPP loans. Former HC darling Mixpanel took PPP loans. As did Bird, and a number of dating apps. (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/06/ppp-loans-to-tech-start-ups-bird-mixpanel-grindr-on-the-list.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/06/ppp-loans-to-tech-start-ups-...) Are we calling them unscrupulous too?

adam_arthur 5y ago
Yes, proof of impaired revenue or profit streams with a certain threshold should have been a requirement for PPP. Much lower income thresholds should have been applied to stimulus checks. Student loan debt should not have been paused for high earners. Interest rates should not have been pegged at 0 while asset bubbles formed over all asset classes. That's called rational and responsible policy. Enforcement could have been retroactive to avoid delaying disbursement of funds. It's not hard to write sensible legislation, even under a time crunch. And hardships come naturally to business all the time. It's not the government's role to save everybody in every situation. Companies that were financially irresponsible or poorly run should naturally fail when economic times get rough. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. We saved everybody just to end up with massive inflation which will require forcing the economy into recession anyway, defeating the entire purpose and impact of the stimulus. Make no mistake, unemployment will spike in a big way as the Fed tightens, just as it has essentially every other time they had to tighten to curb inflation. The aid was right, the magnitude was far overdone. It will be quite obvious to historians, though it's obvious even now.
- gamblor956 5y ago
  Wow. Just wow. No point in trying to have a conversation with someone who is just going to rotely reiterate ideological talking points. But I will say on one point (Companies that were financially irresponsible or poorly run should naturally fail when economic times get rough.) These companies ere struggling because the government shut everything nonessential down. The point of the PPP was to make up for that fact that the government, during a global pandemic that killed millions wouldn't let people go to work. Next time you want to discuss the merits of the PPP, step outside of your tech bubble and think about what COVID was like for all of the non-tech companies whose functions can't be done from home.
  - adam_arthur 5y ago
    What is ideological? Your responses indicates you have no understanding of nuance or magnitude in policy. Was it an all or nothing situation? No, not at all. So either you're being intentionally misleading, or lack critical thinking. The option in front of politicians wasn't do these bills in this exact form or nothing at all. Why act like it was? It's a false premise. Is it due to a bias in trying to justify the inflationary result? And you seem to lack understanding of the consequence of high inflation, which inevitably will be higher unemployment, hurting those you sought to help. Study any history of the relationship between monetary policy, inflation, and unemployment and it's pretty obvious.
    - gamblor956 5y ago
      LOLOLOL. I worked on economics policy in a prior life. I've forgotten more about economic policy than you've ever known. Inflation is not a bad thing; in fact, low-to-moderate inflation is desired. High inflation is not because it generally means that base or fixed cost growth (i.e., food and oil) is outpacing productive growth (pretty much everything else). The option in front of politicians wasn't do these bills in this exact form or nothing at all. Why act like it was? It's a false premise. No it wasn't, but it was the best package they could put together, and it took months to get that far due to ideologues blocking better/more efficient options. It's for armchair economists like you to debate the theoretical perfect relief package that they should have passed, in the non-existent fantasy la la land where that would have been possible. Of course, in that fantasy land, COVID wouldn't have happened, and our economy would not have become dependent on JIT inventory.

adam_arthur 5y ago

Yes, proof of impaired revenue or profit streams with a certain threshold should have been a requirement for PPP. Much lower income thresholds should have been applied to stimulus checks. Student loan debt should not have been paused for high earners. Interest rates should not have been pegged at 0 while asset bubbles formed over all asset classes. That's called rational and responsible policy. Enforcement could have been retroactive to avoid delaying disbursement of funds. It's not hard to write sensible legislation, even under a time crunch. And hardships come naturally to business all the time. It's not the government's role to save everybody in every situation. Companies that were financially irresponsible or poorly run should naturally fail when economic times get rough. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. We saved everybody just to end up with massive inflation which will require forcing the economy into recession anyway, defeating the entire purpose and impact of the stimulus. Make no mistake, unemployment will spike in a big way as the Fed tightens, just as it has essentially every other time they had to tighten to curb inflation. The aid was right, the magnitude was far overdone. It will be quite obvious to historians, though it's obvious even now.

gamblor956 5y ago
Wow. Just wow. No point in trying to have a conversation with someone who is just going to rotely reiterate ideological talking points. But I will say on one point (Companies that were financially irresponsible or poorly run should naturally fail when economic times get rough.) These companies ere struggling because the government shut everything nonessential down. The point of the PPP was to make up for that fact that the government, during a global pandemic that killed millions wouldn't let people go to work. Next time you want to discuss the merits of the PPP, step outside of your tech bubble and think about what COVID was like for all of the non-tech companies whose functions can't be done from home.
- adam_arthur 5y ago
  What is ideological? Your responses indicates you have no understanding of nuance or magnitude in policy. Was it an all or nothing situation? No, not at all. So either you're being intentionally misleading, or lack critical thinking. The option in front of politicians wasn't do these bills in this exact form or nothing at all. Why act like it was? It's a false premise. Is it due to a bias in trying to justify the inflationary result? And you seem to lack understanding of the consequence of high inflation, which inevitably will be higher unemployment, hurting those you sought to help. Study any history of the relationship between monetary policy, inflation, and unemployment and it's pretty obvious.
  - gamblor956 5y ago
    LOLOLOL. I worked on economics policy in a prior life. I've forgotten more about economic policy than you've ever known. Inflation is not a bad thing; in fact, low-to-moderate inflation is desired. High inflation is not because it generally means that base or fixed cost growth (i.e., food and oil) is outpacing productive growth (pretty much everything else). The option in front of politicians wasn't do these bills in this exact form or nothing at all. Why act like it was? It's a false premise. No it wasn't, but it was the best package they could put together, and it took months to get that far due to ideologues blocking better/more efficient options. It's for armchair economists like you to debate the theoretical perfect relief package that they should have passed, in the non-existent fantasy la la land where that would have been possible. Of course, in that fantasy land, COVID wouldn't have happened, and our economy would not have become dependent on JIT inventory.