8 ms·

> - Covid stimulus going to people who didn't need it Could you please elaborate? I think the way the US did it's COVID stimulus was outstanding and very close

> - Covid stimulus going to people who didn't need it Could you please elaborate? I think the way the US did it's COVID stimulus was outstanding and very close to the ideal way to actually address people's potential needs. > - People spending that stimulus money to invest (often for the first time) on zero-fee platforms like Robin Hood What's exactly the problem? Aren't people free to spend their own money any way they feel like it? Or are we now held accountable by a righteous capitalism police to determine if an expense we make is kosher? > - Meme stock investors intentionally manipulating stock prices to cause them to diverge from the underlying value of the company What's exactly the problem? I mean, who are you to tell what's the "underlying value" of something, specially in a free market economy? It seems to me that worst case scenario the people spending their money on stocks are only gambling their own money, and best case scenario they profit from their own investment.

CalRobert 4y ago
I generally favour the way covid stimulus went but I suppose the argument would be that if it's going to people who are using it to buy GME maybe they didn't actually need it. Whether it _should_ only have gone to those who needed it, or just to everyone, is another question.
twblalock 4y ago
> It seems to me that worst case scenario the people spending their money on stocks are only gambling their own money, and best case scenario they profit from their own investment. A lot of people got swept up in the hype and got left holding the bag after the initial set of meme investors made their money and got out.
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
> Could you please elaborate? I think the way the US did it's COVID stimulus was outstanding and very close to the ideal way to actually address people's potential needs. I have a number of friends in the contracting/remodeling/construction industry. Demand for their services skyrocketed during COVID while they were all simultaneously working with their accountants to maximize their take from the COVID PPP program. Huge quantities of COVID money were pumped into companies that absolutely did not need it, and that's not even counting the massive volume of fraudulent claims. The COVID Paycheck Protection Program was supposed to shore up companies that would otherwise have to fire employees, but AFAICT nothing really stopped highly profitable companies from also collecting the money.
- arinlen 4y ago
  > Huge quantities of COVID money were pumped into companies that absolutely did not need it (...) Since when is revenue and profit dictated by anyone's sense of fairness? That's an awfully moralistic and judgemental take on everyone else's needs and desires. Sadly this blend of judgemental view of everyone's money already hit small things like buying groceries. Damn the have-nots for generating inflation by actually stocking on the decent food that the well-to-do used to buy. Do you see any problem in anyone spending their own money in any way they'd like?
  - PragmaticPulp 4y ago
    I was referring to PPP loans from the government that were forgiven: https://www.sba.gov/funding-programs/loans/covid-19-relief-options/paycheck-protection-program/ppp-loan-forgiveness https://www.sba.gov/funding-programs/loans/covid-19-relief-o... These were supposed to keep at-risk companies from failing when the economy crashed, but then the economy didn't crash and instead it was just a huge government handout of free money to most companies.
    - aaomidi 4y ago
      Just reminder that if you know any abusers, report it to the DoJ. These people who bought homes and shit with ppp are going to go to prison. I hope at least.
      - tdfx 4y ago
        I don't think there's enough investigative power to find all the people who were abusing the system. The level of fraud that I personally witnessed of people filing hundreds of PPP loans for non-existent businesses was in the high 7-figure range, and that was just 2 guys I happened to hear of. There were likely hundreds of scammers doing the same thing in every major city, each stealing millions of dollars each.
        dboreham 4y ago
prepend 4y ago
Examples I witnessed are friends who never lost their job got like an extra $8k (couple working with two kids). So they bought stuff with it. I have multiple friends in tech who switched to remote and literally used the extra stimulus cash to trade with Robinhood and crypto. I doubt this is representative. But people making $100k who ended up saving money from no longer needing to commute did not need thousands of dollars in stimulus. Of course, it was neat getting the money, but it resulted in a lot of extra cash. Comically, I also have friends who just paid down debt and didn’t buy anything. But my anecdotes are lucky in that I didn’t know anyone who lost their job or got seriously ill.
- eherot 4y ago
  I feel it’s worth pointing out that saving people from financial ruin was only part of the intent of the PPP legislation. The main point of a “stimulus” is to stimulate the economy. If your friend received money and then spent it on something, the legislation essentially worked as intended.
  - prepend 4y ago
    It certainly stimulated GameStop stock. I think the criticism is that the stimulus worked too well and we’re suffering inflation and whatnot now.
    - adra 4y ago
      Inflation is hitting most countries aggressively now. The US may actually be on the conservative end of inflation which may have been buffered using government subsidies/influence, but the net takeaway is the rapid expansion in the world can't be explained by simply looking at the US's free-money-keep-buying scheme.
      - spekcular 4y ago
        Not Japan, for instance: http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2022/05/an-inflation-puzzle.html http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2022/05/an-inflation-puzzle.h...
harambae 4y ago
> Could you please elaborate? College students who weren't planning to have any income anyway before Covid hit. And that's at least still a relatively "legitimate" payout compared to the screw-ups like sending money to prisoners [0]. But really both cases are massively massively dwarfed by anyone who could fog a mirror starting an LLC and getting $40k to $250k of PPP money. I personally know a couple people who should go to jail for this (but probably won't even have to repay the money, let alone repay with interest, let alone get in trouble). [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2022/04/05/government-insider-helped-prison-inmates-steal-covid-19-unemployment-benefits-investigators-claim/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2022/04/05/gover...
- jjoonathan 4y ago
  Why do the dollar amounts always go Inappropriate QE >> PPP Grants >> Stimulus Check for undeserving person but the reporting happens in proportion / order Stimulus Check for undeserving person >> PPP Grants >> Inappropriate QE ? It's a rhetorical question, we all know why, but we don't have to repeat these choices in this thread.
  - tmp_anon_22 4y ago
    Reminds me of water conservation focusing on personal use versus industrial agriculture in the middle of literal deserts. Or the output of a Toyota Camry versus a container ship.
  - throwawaylinux 4y ago
    Same reason we're told to stop eating beef and take public transport to fight climate change, and almost nothing about reducing population or taxing and punishing fossil fuel cartels and profiteers.
  - LorenPechtel 4y ago
    Yeah. We got stimulus checks we didn't need. I think that was the right thing to do, though--they would have come out a lot later if they had to go through and try to figure out who needs them. Especially since both of us are self-employed, the IRS simply gets the quarterly estimated payments and nothing about what we are actually making until we file the tax return. PPP was a fraudster's paradise, though. The idea was good, the implementation was not so good.
agensaequivocum 4y ago
I bought my wife a handgun and myself an AK-47 with the last one. I certainly needed the weapons but not the check.
- PhileasNietzche 4y ago
- madengr 4y ago
  Should have bought a 5.56 mm, now that cheap Russian ammo is no more.
- LightG 4y ago
emerged 4y ago
I lost two jobs directly due to COVID and got $0 “stimulus” while my sister was employed the entire time and got an absurd amount of free money. It wasn’t a stimulus. It wasn’t COVID related either. It was income redistribution. I might respect it to some extent if people called it what it was.
- spookthesunset 4y ago
  > It was income redistribution. And in the end it was redistribution from the lower to the upper class. The last two years were the biggest wealth transfer in history. And "wealth" is so much more than just money... we absolutely screwed our kids in a way that will impact them for quite some time.
  - zapataband1 4y ago
    This is what every major crash in the US economy is. Poor people lose assets and rich people can coast long enough to buy them up cheap. Not a surprise that we are headed towards continuously record-breaking levels on income inequality
JoeyBananas 4y ago
I never needed/wanted covid stimulus money, but it was practically jammed down my pockets by force when I did my taxes.
deltree7 4y ago
The second stimulus was a disaster. It has led to an unprecedented sticky-inflation that can only be brought down by inducing a recession. It's not that there were warned by prominent economists https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/11/inflation-larry-summers-biden-build-back-better-spending-manchin.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/11/inflation-larry-summ...
giantg2 4y ago
"Could you please elaborate? I think the way the US did it's COVID stimulus was outstanding and very close to the ideal way to actually address people's potential needs." Many of the people who got the stimulus checks didn't need them. Same with the advanced child tax credits (increases spending when it looks like you have more money). This was true for myself and many coworkers. There were others who needed it. It was far from perfect though. "What's exactly the problem? Aren't people free to spend their own money any way they feel like it?" Yes they are free to do that. It causes problems when there's a disconnect between value and price. Many of the activities were trading or gambling, which are not beneficial. That gambling affects prices and the market, thus affecting others. Think about what happens when's there's a rush on a bank. A bunch of people acting stupidly in large numbers can create a negative environment for everyone else.
- chii 4y ago
  > Think about what happens when's there's a rush on a bank. A bunch of people acting stupidly in large numbers can create a negative environment for everyone else. that's not people acting stupidly - a bank run happens when trust in the banking system drops to below a critical threshold. This trust might be eroded by some external event, and mishandling by the governing authority etc. it is rational then, as an individual who cannot change the authority's handling, to take action to protect one's own interest. > Yes they are free to do that. It causes problems when there's a disconnect between value and price. Many of the activities were trading or gambling, which are not beneficial. they are beneficial from the point of view of the person doing it. It isn't the activity that causes the problem - it's that those activity is funded by taxpayer money, not their own!
  - giantg2 4y ago
    "it is rational then" Something can be rational and unreasonable at the same time. It seems you answered your own question from your previous comment - it creates a problem for others based on them acting on their own self interest. "they are beneficial from the point of view of the person doing it." Just because it's beneficial for one person doesn't mean it can't be a problem for others. "It isn't the activity that causes the problem - it's that those activity is funded by taxpayer money, not their own!" Even if it were their own money, it would still cause problems. Although it's questionable if they would have participated in that behavior without the extra money.
bandyaboot 4y ago
> What's exactly the problem? Aren't people free to spend their own money any way they feel like it? Or are we now held accountable by a righteous capitalism police to determine if an expense we make is kosher? Yes, they are free to spend their own money that way…evidenced by the fact that they weren’t prevented from spending their money that way. Other people are also free to call their choices stupid.
PhileasNietzche 4y ago
There's nothing outstanding about repeatedly handing out thousands of dollars to every taxpayer and increasing unemployment because all the gig economy workers were upset that there was no more gig economy for a few weeks. Just like every time our government bails out organisations like GM, none of that money did any lasting good for the economy and simply served to increase the entitlement rampant among US citizens. Imagine a place where people who deliver disgustingly unhealthy takeout to a population where the majority of morbidity and mortality is directly related to chronically poor lifestyle choices are called "essential." Thanks to all that "stimulus," there is no small number of people who hardly worked the entirety of 2020, if at all. "I know you took this job because there wasn't really an interview, you don't have a real boss, you work whenever you feel like it, you don't have to do anything you don't already do every day and it's just so hard to find a job in the Great Resignation, but now you want to cry foul because there's no job security due to people not having enough money to stuff their faces full of shit for a few weeks, so here's some extra cash. 'Murika!" "Oh! It wasn't enough that we paused student loans for all of 2020 and 2021, so we're going to keep extending that, even knowing many of you will just bedmaking minimum payments until the remaining balance falls off (I know doctors making six figures who have been doing this since before the most recent pandemic)." Full disclosure: I was unemployed for about half of 2020, didn't ever take unemployment and survived on my VA disability while actively pursuing employment. I have also currently paid 80% of my student loans after graduating in 2016. We should be teaching the next generation how to survive in this increasingly dysfunctional world, not letting them believe that some person/organisation will always be there to bail us out after every stupid decision. Apparently, you haven't noticed, but the US brand of capitalism and the stupid idea that we'll just keep throwing money at every problem is literally destroying the planet.
- zapataband1 4y ago
  You can't shield kids from the effects of the economy and the world. Even given the best of luck and hard work ethic they could fall sick, into debt, and financially crippled. I think you have the relationship inversely related. The stimulus was -because- people were not working, which was because there was a global pandemic that was also incredibly mishandled by the gov
ericmcer 4y ago
Anecdotal but all my friends who work retail ended up making more on stimulus/unemployment than they did working. That is already strange but when you add in that people on unemployment were making far more than the "essential" retail workers and it became kind of perverse. > "are we now held accountable by a righteous capitalism police" I would argue that yes, if you are getting free money from the government to help sustain you during trying times it is reasonable to say it shouldn't be used for gambling. I don't think we are impinging on anyones freedom to say they can't spend their food stamps at a casino.
KennyBlanken 4y ago
Platforms like Robin Hood make money off delaying the transaction slightly and microtrading in advance of it, as well as compiling a 'bigger picture'. The "geniuses" in GME, Stonks, WSB, etc telegraph to the entire world what they're going to do via their subreddit, then give the trading house even more data showing how many people follow through on particular "talk", allowing the trading house to accurately predict what sort of activity a post will generate. They think they're incredibly smart when really all they did was fuel the world's largest pump-and-dump scam. /r/GME was deeply depressing during some of the crashes, with people sharing poverty-food recipes not just to help people get by who had lost more than their disposable income, but to help people buy even more stock.
koyote 4y ago
> Could you please elaborate? I think the way the US did it's COVID stimulus was outstanding and very close to the ideal way to actually address people's potential needs. The way the US tax system works meant that non-residents got the cheque as well (because they have to file taxes). Non-residents are usually able to reduce their tax liability to zero, so a US citizen earning over 200k but not living in the US would get a cheque mailed to them.

CalRobert 4y ago

I generally favour the way covid stimulus went but I suppose the argument would be that if it's going to people who are using it to buy GME maybe they didn't actually need it. Whether it _should_ only have gone to those who needed it, or just to everyone, is another question.

twblalock 4y ago

> It seems to me that worst case scenario the people spending their money on stocks are only gambling their own money, and best case scenario they profit from their own investment. A lot of people got swept up in the hype and got left holding the bag after the initial set of meme investors made their money and got out.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

> Could you please elaborate? I think the way the US did it's COVID stimulus was outstanding and very close to the ideal way to actually address people's potential needs. I have a number of friends in the contracting/remodeling/construction industry. Demand for their services skyrocketed during COVID while they were all simultaneously working with their accountants to maximize their take from the COVID PPP program. Huge quantities of COVID money were pumped into companies that absolutely did not need it, and that's not even counting the massive volume of fraudulent claims. The COVID Paycheck Protection Program was supposed to shore up companies that would otherwise have to fire employees, but AFAICT nothing really stopped highly profitable companies from also collecting the money.

arinlen 4y ago
> Huge quantities of COVID money were pumped into companies that absolutely did not need it (...) Since when is revenue and profit dictated by anyone's sense of fairness? That's an awfully moralistic and judgemental take on everyone else's needs and desires. Sadly this blend of judgemental view of everyone's money already hit small things like buying groceries. Damn the have-nots for generating inflation by actually stocking on the decent food that the well-to-do used to buy. Do you see any problem in anyone spending their own money in any way they'd like?
- PragmaticPulp 4y ago
  I was referring to PPP loans from the government that were forgiven: https://www.sba.gov/funding-programs/loans/covid-19-relief-options/paycheck-protection-program/ppp-loan-forgiveness https://www.sba.gov/funding-programs/loans/covid-19-relief-o... These were supposed to keep at-risk companies from failing when the economy crashed, but then the economy didn't crash and instead it was just a huge government handout of free money to most companies.
  - aaomidi 4y ago
    Just reminder that if you know any abusers, report it to the DoJ. These people who bought homes and shit with ppp are going to go to prison. I hope at least.
    - tdfx 4y ago
      I don't think there's enough investigative power to find all the people who were abusing the system. The level of fraud that I personally witnessed of people filing hundreds of PPP loans for non-existent businesses was in the high 7-figure range, and that was just 2 guys I happened to hear of. There were likely hundreds of scammers doing the same thing in every major city, each stealing millions of dollars each.
      - dboreham 4y ago

prepend 4y ago

Examples I witnessed are friends who never lost their job got like an extra $8k (couple working with two kids). So they bought stuff with it. I have multiple friends in tech who switched to remote and literally used the extra stimulus cash to trade with Robinhood and crypto. I doubt this is representative. But people making $100k who ended up saving money from no longer needing to commute did not need thousands of dollars in stimulus. Of course, it was neat getting the money, but it resulted in a lot of extra cash. Comically, I also have friends who just paid down debt and didn’t buy anything. But my anecdotes are lucky in that I didn’t know anyone who lost their job or got seriously ill.

eherot 4y ago
I feel it’s worth pointing out that saving people from financial ruin was only part of the intent of the PPP legislation. The main point of a “stimulus” is to stimulate the economy. If your friend received money and then spent it on something, the legislation essentially worked as intended.
- prepend 4y ago
  It certainly stimulated GameStop stock. I think the criticism is that the stimulus worked too well and we’re suffering inflation and whatnot now.
  - adra 4y ago
    Inflation is hitting most countries aggressively now. The US may actually be on the conservative end of inflation which may have been buffered using government subsidies/influence, but the net takeaway is the rapid expansion in the world can't be explained by simply looking at the US's free-money-keep-buying scheme.
    - spekcular 4y ago
      Not Japan, for instance: http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2022/05/an-inflation-puzzle.html http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2022/05/an-inflation-puzzle.h...

harambae 4y ago

> Could you please elaborate? College students who weren't planning to have any income anyway before Covid hit. And that's at least still a relatively "legitimate" payout compared to the screw-ups like sending money to prisoners [0]. But really both cases are massively massively dwarfed by anyone who could fog a mirror starting an LLC and getting $40k to $250k of PPP money. I personally know a couple people who should go to jail for this (but probably won't even have to repay the money, let alone repay with interest, let alone get in trouble). [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2022/04/05/government-insider-helped-prison-inmates-steal-covid-19-unemployment-benefits-investigators-claim/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2022/04/05/gover...

jjoonathan 4y ago
Why do the dollar amounts always go Inappropriate QE >> PPP Grants >> Stimulus Check for undeserving person but the reporting happens in proportion / order Stimulus Check for undeserving person >> PPP Grants >> Inappropriate QE ? It's a rhetorical question, we all know why, but we don't have to repeat these choices in this thread.
- tmp_anon_22 4y ago
  Reminds me of water conservation focusing on personal use versus industrial agriculture in the middle of literal deserts. Or the output of a Toyota Camry versus a container ship.
- throwawaylinux 4y ago
  Same reason we're told to stop eating beef and take public transport to fight climate change, and almost nothing about reducing population or taxing and punishing fossil fuel cartels and profiteers.
- LorenPechtel 4y ago
  Yeah. We got stimulus checks we didn't need. I think that was the right thing to do, though--they would have come out a lot later if they had to go through and try to figure out who needs them. Especially since both of us are self-employed, the IRS simply gets the quarterly estimated payments and nothing about what we are actually making until we file the tax return. PPP was a fraudster's paradise, though. The idea was good, the implementation was not so good.

agensaequivocum 4y ago

I bought my wife a handgun and myself an AK-47 with the last one. I certainly needed the weapons but not the check.

PhileasNietzche 4y ago
madengr 4y ago
Should have bought a 5.56 mm, now that cheap Russian ammo is no more.
LightG 4y ago

emerged 4y ago

I lost two jobs directly due to COVID and got $0 “stimulus” while my sister was employed the entire time and got an absurd amount of free money. It wasn’t a stimulus. It wasn’t COVID related either. It was income redistribution. I might respect it to some extent if people called it what it was.

spookthesunset 4y ago
> It was income redistribution. And in the end it was redistribution from the lower to the upper class. The last two years were the biggest wealth transfer in history. And "wealth" is so much more than just money... we absolutely screwed our kids in a way that will impact them for quite some time.
- zapataband1 4y ago
  This is what every major crash in the US economy is. Poor people lose assets and rich people can coast long enough to buy them up cheap. Not a surprise that we are headed towards continuously record-breaking levels on income inequality

JoeyBananas 4y ago

I never needed/wanted covid stimulus money, but it was practically jammed down my pockets by force when I did my taxes.

deltree7 4y ago

The second stimulus was a disaster. It has led to an unprecedented sticky-inflation that can only be brought down by inducing a recession. It's not that there were warned by prominent economists https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/11/inflation-larry-summers-biden-build-back-better-spending-manchin.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/11/inflation-larry-summ...

giantg2 4y ago

"Could you please elaborate? I think the way the US did it's COVID stimulus was outstanding and very close to the ideal way to actually address people's potential needs." Many of the people who got the stimulus checks didn't need them. Same with the advanced child tax credits (increases spending when it looks like you have more money). This was true for myself and many coworkers. There were others who needed it. It was far from perfect though. "What's exactly the problem? Aren't people free to spend their own money any way they feel like it?" Yes they are free to do that. It causes problems when there's a disconnect between value and price. Many of the activities were trading or gambling, which are not beneficial. That gambling affects prices and the market, thus affecting others. Think about what happens when's there's a rush on a bank. A bunch of people acting stupidly in large numbers can create a negative environment for everyone else.

chii 4y ago
> Think about what happens when's there's a rush on a bank. A bunch of people acting stupidly in large numbers can create a negative environment for everyone else. that's not people acting stupidly - a bank run happens when trust in the banking system drops to below a critical threshold. This trust might be eroded by some external event, and mishandling by the governing authority etc. it is rational then, as an individual who cannot change the authority's handling, to take action to protect one's own interest. > Yes they are free to do that. It causes problems when there's a disconnect between value and price. Many of the activities were trading or gambling, which are not beneficial. they are beneficial from the point of view of the person doing it. It isn't the activity that causes the problem - it's that those activity is funded by taxpayer money, not their own!
- giantg2 4y ago
  "it is rational then" Something can be rational and unreasonable at the same time. It seems you answered your own question from your previous comment - it creates a problem for others based on them acting on their own self interest. "they are beneficial from the point of view of the person doing it." Just because it's beneficial for one person doesn't mean it can't be a problem for others. "It isn't the activity that causes the problem - it's that those activity is funded by taxpayer money, not their own!" Even if it were their own money, it would still cause problems. Although it's questionable if they would have participated in that behavior without the extra money.

bandyaboot 4y ago

> What's exactly the problem? Aren't people free to spend their own money any way they feel like it? Or are we now held accountable by a righteous capitalism police to determine if an expense we make is kosher? Yes, they are free to spend their own money that way…evidenced by the fact that they weren’t prevented from spending their money that way. Other people are also free to call their choices stupid.

PhileasNietzche 4y ago

There's nothing outstanding about repeatedly handing out thousands of dollars to every taxpayer and increasing unemployment because all the gig economy workers were upset that there was no more gig economy for a few weeks. Just like every time our government bails out organisations like GM, none of that money did any lasting good for the economy and simply served to increase the entitlement rampant among US citizens. Imagine a place where people who deliver disgustingly unhealthy takeout to a population where the majority of morbidity and mortality is directly related to chronically poor lifestyle choices are called "essential." Thanks to all that "stimulus," there is no small number of people who hardly worked the entirety of 2020, if at all. "I know you took this job because there wasn't really an interview, you don't have a real boss, you work whenever you feel like it, you don't have to do anything you don't already do every day and it's just so hard to find a job in the Great Resignation, but now you want to cry foul because there's no job security due to people not having enough money to stuff their faces full of shit for a few weeks, so here's some extra cash. 'Murika!" "Oh! It wasn't enough that we paused student loans for all of 2020 and 2021, so we're going to keep extending that, even knowing many of you will just bedmaking minimum payments until the remaining balance falls off (I know doctors making six figures who have been doing this since before the most recent pandemic)." Full disclosure: I was unemployed for about half of 2020, didn't ever take unemployment and survived on my VA disability while actively pursuing employment. I have also currently paid 80% of my student loans after graduating in 2016. We should be teaching the next generation how to survive in this increasingly dysfunctional world, not letting them believe that some person/organisation will always be there to bail us out after every stupid decision. Apparently, you haven't noticed, but the US brand of capitalism and the stupid idea that we'll just keep throwing money at every problem is literally destroying the planet.

zapataband1 4y ago
You can't shield kids from the effects of the economy and the world. Even given the best of luck and hard work ethic they could fall sick, into debt, and financially crippled. I think you have the relationship inversely related. The stimulus was -because- people were not working, which was because there was a global pandemic that was also incredibly mishandled by the gov

ericmcer 4y ago

Anecdotal but all my friends who work retail ended up making more on stimulus/unemployment than they did working. That is already strange but when you add in that people on unemployment were making far more than the "essential" retail workers and it became kind of perverse. > "are we now held accountable by a righteous capitalism police" I would argue that yes, if you are getting free money from the government to help sustain you during trying times it is reasonable to say it shouldn't be used for gambling. I don't think we are impinging on anyones freedom to say they can't spend their food stamps at a casino.

KennyBlanken 4y ago

Platforms like Robin Hood make money off delaying the transaction slightly and microtrading in advance of it, as well as compiling a 'bigger picture'. The "geniuses" in GME, Stonks, WSB, etc telegraph to the entire world what they're going to do via their subreddit, then give the trading house even more data showing how many people follow through on particular "talk", allowing the trading house to accurately predict what sort of activity a post will generate. They think they're incredibly smart when really all they did was fuel the world's largest pump-and-dump scam. /r/GME was deeply depressing during some of the crashes, with people sharing poverty-food recipes not just to help people get by who had lost more than their disposable income, but to help people buy even more stock.

koyote 4y ago

> Could you please elaborate? I think the way the US did it's COVID stimulus was outstanding and very close to the ideal way to actually address people's potential needs. The way the US tax system works meant that non-residents got the cheque as well (because they have to file taxes). Non-residents are usually able to reduce their tax liability to zero, so a US citizen earning over 200k but not living in the US would get a cheque mailed to them.