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> - Covid stimulus going to people who didn't need it From the stimulus the worst of the offenses by far happend in the PPP for small business. It was absoutel

> - Covid stimulus going to people who didn't need it From the stimulus the worst of the offenses by far happend in the PPP for small business. It was absoutely shameful. While there was of course waste in the direct treasury payments to citizens, they get way overrepresented compared to what happened in the PPP. It's the same human nature of: If a big company gets 100M of our taxes for no reason, people grumble a bit, but if their next door neighboor gets an extra $100 and they don't, you never hear the end of it. The PPP was rife with waste, but by design you'll hear way more media and people complain about the co-worker they know of or cousin that spent $1000 on trading cards. Edit: And skipping my rant that it was by design that the PPP had no transparency and the adminstration fired the inspectors general that would oversee the program for waste to avoid transparency. Edit: And to be clear it's fine to have untargeted stimulus for people to cover day to day expenses, and also fine to have loans to businesses to keep things afloat. But to intentionally do so with blocking transparency, and removing oversite officials is just creating a cesspool for waste.

pm90 4y ago
If it kept businesses alive it was probably worth it. Small businesses take a long time to establish themselves but can be snuffed out pretty quickly. Many of my friends with such businesses barely made it and the PPP loans were crucial in getting them through the pandemic.
runnerup 4y ago
The purpose of the “stimulus” funds wasn’t to give what was needed to the people who needed it. The purpose was to smooth out the economic whiplash. We knew there would be an enormous temporary dip in demand, but that structurally (long term) we’d still need all our businesses and couldn’t really afford for them to go bankrupt. The money was supposed to be given to those who could spend it, to help keep all our small/medium/large businesses as healthy as possible.
- BoiledCabbage 4y ago
  > The purpose of the “stimulus” funds wasn’t to give what was needed to the people who needed it. Agreed, and providing direct payments to people who are working to put together food or pay their rent makes perfect sense to me. The potential disasters we would have seen if we hadn't done that would've been horrible. And providing loans to small businesses so they can keep functioning also makes sense. But firing the inspectors who are supposed to oversee the small business loans (as they always have done), blocking pushes for basic transparency of even what businesses receive the loans, and then "forgiving" 97% of all loans as a gift from the govt is beyond wildly irresponsible.
- namecheapTA 4y ago
  I basically operate within small to medium size business as sales in California. Every business owner I know took/got so much PPP money they flat out feel guilty but at the same time all they did was take what was being offered. It's probably the most internally rage inducing thing I've ever heard of, but Im so used to faking agreement to keep the sales relationship alive I basically can block it out. Money is sales feels like fake money anyway so I can cope. But I think if any hard working people really found out what happened they'd almost go French revolution on government.
  - ryandvm 4y ago
    Not taking PPP money that your business is eligible for is akin to paying more taxes than you're required. Maybe it's honorable in some strange way, but it's certainly not rational.
    - somethoughts 4y ago
      In my humble opinion - this is a great insight on both paying your fair share and not taking PPP/social security/unemployment even if you technically can but don't actually need it. It should be lauded more even though it probably will never be.
      - pessimizer 4y ago
        I don't know why we would have debates on whether we should "laud" things or not. How about regulating things, rather than having debates about who or what should be praised? Companies aren't dogs or children. I personally get very little from either the praise or condemnation of anonymous strangers. Not really directed at you, I'm just sick of the idea that if we all get together and declare things good or bad, that's some sort of accomplishment. People who do well do well through ignoring the irrelevant and immaterial comments of busybodies and bikeshedders.
        WastingMyTime89 4y ago
        Moral exists and you can aim for a virtuous life in an Aristotelian way and are free to think people who strive for that should be admired. I am at this point in my life of an opinion opposite to yours. What people do is not neutral and people who abuse system or knowingly profit from harmful systems have a negative impact on our society as a whole and it is legitimate to see their actions as bad.
- KSteffensen 4y ago
  The purpose of the stimulus check was for Donald Trump to put his name on a check to a bunch of voters. The extent to which it happened to help out people in need or "the economy" was secondary.
  - harambae 4y ago
    But those stimulus checks was a tiny part of the overall stimulus, which included PPP "loans" (that are widely forgiven)
- agumonkey 4y ago
  Is there any notion of a fast in economics
ganoushoreilly 4y ago
A startup I worked with that raised 20+ million in late 2019 filed for ppp and got 600k+. They didn’t need it but all they had to do was say Covid had impacted them, when truth be told it impacted all of us. It was a waste of tax payer dollars. I just hope the businesses that truly needed it were able to get it.
- skrtskrt 4y ago
  the local immigrant mom and pop shops that needed it I'm sure had a hell of a time navigating the paperwork, not to mention trusting the government and banking system to take care of forgiving the loan when all the conditions were met.
  - rossdavidh 4y ago
    My wife's small store (two owners, no employees) was unable to figure out the PPP paperwork, threw up their hands and said 'screw it' and just got on with figuring out how to reopen. I think the smaller the business, and the more they depended on that business to pay the bills, the less likely they had the time and resources to navigate the paperwork.
    - chii 4y ago
      The funny (or sad) thing is, "small" firms that are hedge funds also managed to apply and because they often have tax accountants on retainer, they had an easy time doing the paperwork!
      - davidandgoliath 4y ago
        What paperwork? All PPP requested was w-2 data and rent/payroll information. If you run a legal business, you have these things on hand constantly.
        acchow 4y ago
        I think we're discovering now that all that was needed is Photoshop
gexla 4y ago
The OP didn't mention PPP. The PPP was much different than the other forms of stimulus. It either went to employees, or it had to be paid back. The interest on the loan was low though. I doubt much of PPP funds were being used in the meme trading game.
- idiotsecant 4y ago
  I think if you dig a bit you'll find that PPP was absolutely rife with fraud. The verification was "is this going to employees? Promise?"
  - brightball 4y ago
    For the initial loan to get it issued quickly, that’s correct. To have the loan forgiven, you had to submit documents at tax time to verify it or it became a low interest loan that had to be paid back. PPP was one of the best ideas that came out of locking down the entire country because otherwise a tooooon of people would have been laid off immediately. Instead, even people who couldn’t do any work at all due to lack of child care were able to be paid, maintain insurance and benefits. They had to act so quickly.
  - gexla 4y ago
    I didn't say there was no fraud in the PPP program. The OP comment didn't mention the PPP specifically as stimulus. The context of the article, is individuals investing money in meme stocks. The PPP went to business owners (with the assumption they would pay employees rather than laying them off) and likely wasn't being used for meme stocks. I was reading through the WSB Reddit sub at the time. There was a lot of chatter there about people using their personal stimulus payments for investing in meme stocks. I also spent a lot of time on Reddit subs checking chatter on PPP and EIDL. Of the two, my guess is there was a lot more widespread fraud (more people involved, but with smaller disbursements) with the EIDL. The EIDL was giving out 1K per employee (up to 10K) for anyone who claimed they were business owners. That didn't have to be paid back.
fredgrott 4y ago
How is a check for a tax credit wasteful? No really explain that logic as when we give tax credits to business we do not then again use the same screwed up logic the biggest example, the Trump org tax credit check from early 2000s. in fact now that the IRs know it was base don fraud there still asking for it back.
idiotsecant 4y ago
No, the worst by orders of magnitude was the fed QE. It lead to system-breaking levels of wealth transfer.
nouveaux 4y ago
This and the arm chair government spending police in this thread is completely wrong. The PPP helped a ton of small businesses who needed it. I, along with many small business owners in our industry got PPP, used it correctly on employee payroll, rent and utilities. It took me all of 30 min to apply for each of the PPP rounds. It took me about the same amount of time to apply for forgiveness. Of course there were problems with the wrong people getting their hands on the money. If you actually put up a ton of filters to make sure the wrong people didn't get the money, it would have delayed the actual people needing money from getting it. The right thing to do is to hand out the money fast and go after the abusers later. These comments are the reason why the small guys always gets the short end of the stick. The big companies have their army of people to solve problems. The small guys are the ones who need it fast without the bureaucracy. Comments like "too much waste" and "shameful" do not hurt the big companies one bit. They just put up another road block for the small guys.
- mdoms 4y ago
  No one had said stimulus wasn't needed. It's perfectly valid to believe that PPP was bad policy and also that a targeted stimulus was necessary.
- zapataband1 4y ago
  The wrong people getting the money is exactly what people are criticizing. I think you just disagree on the ways of preventing it. Chicago used 60% (300million) of relief funds on police personnel costs, it's not just the business aspect that was fucked: https://blockclubchicago.org/2021/02/18/chicago-used-60-of-discretionary-covid-19-funding-from-feds-on-police-its-immoral-critics-say/ https://blockclubchicago.org/2021/02/18/chicago-used-60-of-d...
  - Thorrez 4y ago
    Is that PPP?
    - fundad 4y ago
      It had an impact on keeping paychecks going to people, cops can buy meme stocks. So can arms dealers. We’re worsening inflation by flooding military contractors with money too.
baskethead 4y ago
The PPP was precisely Bernanke's "Dropping money from helicopters" scenario. I think the fear of a Depression was real, and the government was willing to pull the level on the most outrageous tool they had, which was drop money from the skies into the pockets of people who could spend it. Of course I think that was wrong, but I know exactly where this came from, and it was a playbook that was broadcasted by Bernanke I believe decades ago to fight a Depression. At least we can all agree that it worked, although a little too well, which is why asset prices have skyrocketed and inflation has gone horribly wrong.
- maigret 4y ago
  The action of the FED was clearly faster, heavier and in the end better than the ECB. As a result, the FED was able to increase the interest rates faster. Sure it was not perfect but "good enough".
  - sofixa 4y ago
    > The action of the FED was clearly faster, heavier.. than the ECB Well of course, the situation was vastly different. First, in most EU countries there were very few people losing their jobs due to various existing or expanded temporary/partial/etc. unemployment schemes which meant that people kept their jobs, but were paid by the local government instead of the business. Second, the ECB didn't have the required authority to do what needed to be done, and it required negotiations between the eurozone members to agree on how to proceed in regards to loans. And third, actions were taken locally at each government level.
krnlpnc 4y ago
Yup, instead of providing a reasonable recurring "stimulus" income directly (along with suspending rent/loans) during the emergency, PPP loans funneled massive amounts of money into "business owners" pockets. The loans were meant to be used for payroll but the process was so opaque and full of loopholes that business owners could simply play a shell game and keep the funds, or some people even created businesses to receive it. What irritates me is that this is another instance the heavily flawed "trickle down" concept. Companies time and time again act against the best interest of individuals. PPP only further enriched a small subset of business owners at the expense of individual taxpayers. A clear wink-and-a-handshake "deal" to funnel huge amounts of government money into corporations with minimal oversight. If the money had gone directly to people instead, it could have been spent as normal, and that would have done more to help local SMALL businesses stay afloat. Plus the business owners who had to close for lockdowns would have been receiving regular benefits too and rent/loans should have been suspended.
LorenPechtel 4y ago
The problem was that the lack of controls meant it was so easy for the fraudsters to set up situations where they would get the money and not face the repercussions. We saw the same thing with unemployment--the system got overwhelmed so they quit checking and the result was a lot of identity thieves collected unemployment for workers who weren't actually unemployed. (Of course the real problem is the unemployment system has been deliberately kept dysfunctional because that reduces the amount they have to pay out.)

pm90 4y ago

If it kept businesses alive it was probably worth it. Small businesses take a long time to establish themselves but can be snuffed out pretty quickly. Many of my friends with such businesses barely made it and the PPP loans were crucial in getting them through the pandemic.

runnerup 4y ago

The purpose of the “stimulus” funds wasn’t to give what was needed to the people who needed it. The purpose was to smooth out the economic whiplash. We knew there would be an enormous temporary dip in demand, but that structurally (long term) we’d still need all our businesses and couldn’t really afford for them to go bankrupt. The money was supposed to be given to those who could spend it, to help keep all our small/medium/large businesses as healthy as possible.

BoiledCabbage 4y ago
> The purpose of the “stimulus” funds wasn’t to give what was needed to the people who needed it. Agreed, and providing direct payments to people who are working to put together food or pay their rent makes perfect sense to me. The potential disasters we would have seen if we hadn't done that would've been horrible. And providing loans to small businesses so they can keep functioning also makes sense. But firing the inspectors who are supposed to oversee the small business loans (as they always have done), blocking pushes for basic transparency of even what businesses receive the loans, and then "forgiving" 97% of all loans as a gift from the govt is beyond wildly irresponsible.
namecheapTA 4y ago
I basically operate within small to medium size business as sales in California. Every business owner I know took/got so much PPP money they flat out feel guilty but at the same time all they did was take what was being offered. It's probably the most internally rage inducing thing I've ever heard of, but Im so used to faking agreement to keep the sales relationship alive I basically can block it out. Money is sales feels like fake money anyway so I can cope. But I think if any hard working people really found out what happened they'd almost go French revolution on government.
- ryandvm 4y ago
  Not taking PPP money that your business is eligible for is akin to paying more taxes than you're required. Maybe it's honorable in some strange way, but it's certainly not rational.
  - somethoughts 4y ago
    In my humble opinion - this is a great insight on both paying your fair share and not taking PPP/social security/unemployment even if you technically can but don't actually need it. It should be lauded more even though it probably will never be.
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      I don't know why we would have debates on whether we should "laud" things or not. How about regulating things, rather than having debates about who or what should be praised? Companies aren't dogs or children. I personally get very little from either the praise or condemnation of anonymous strangers. Not really directed at you, I'm just sick of the idea that if we all get together and declare things good or bad, that's some sort of accomplishment. People who do well do well through ignoring the irrelevant and immaterial comments of busybodies and bikeshedders.
      - WastingMyTime89 4y ago
        Moral exists and you can aim for a virtuous life in an Aristotelian way and are free to think people who strive for that should be admired. I am at this point in my life of an opinion opposite to yours. What people do is not neutral and people who abuse system or knowingly profit from harmful systems have a negative impact on our society as a whole and it is legitimate to see their actions as bad.
KSteffensen 4y ago
The purpose of the stimulus check was for Donald Trump to put his name on a check to a bunch of voters. The extent to which it happened to help out people in need or "the economy" was secondary.
- harambae 4y ago
  But those stimulus checks was a tiny part of the overall stimulus, which included PPP "loans" (that are widely forgiven)
agumonkey 4y ago
Is there any notion of a fast in economics

ganoushoreilly 4y ago

A startup I worked with that raised 20+ million in late 2019 filed for ppp and got 600k+. They didn’t need it but all they had to do was say Covid had impacted them, when truth be told it impacted all of us. It was a waste of tax payer dollars. I just hope the businesses that truly needed it were able to get it.

skrtskrt 4y ago
the local immigrant mom and pop shops that needed it I'm sure had a hell of a time navigating the paperwork, not to mention trusting the government and banking system to take care of forgiving the loan when all the conditions were met.
- rossdavidh 4y ago
  My wife's small store (two owners, no employees) was unable to figure out the PPP paperwork, threw up their hands and said 'screw it' and just got on with figuring out how to reopen. I think the smaller the business, and the more they depended on that business to pay the bills, the less likely they had the time and resources to navigate the paperwork.
  - chii 4y ago
    The funny (or sad) thing is, "small" firms that are hedge funds also managed to apply and because they often have tax accountants on retainer, they had an easy time doing the paperwork!
    - davidandgoliath 4y ago
      What paperwork? All PPP requested was w-2 data and rent/payroll information. If you run a legal business, you have these things on hand constantly.
      - acchow 4y ago
        I think we're discovering now that all that was needed is Photoshop

gexla 4y ago

The OP didn't mention PPP. The PPP was much different than the other forms of stimulus. It either went to employees, or it had to be paid back. The interest on the loan was low though. I doubt much of PPP funds were being used in the meme trading game.

idiotsecant 4y ago
I think if you dig a bit you'll find that PPP was absolutely rife with fraud. The verification was "is this going to employees? Promise?"
- brightball 4y ago
  For the initial loan to get it issued quickly, that’s correct. To have the loan forgiven, you had to submit documents at tax time to verify it or it became a low interest loan that had to be paid back. PPP was one of the best ideas that came out of locking down the entire country because otherwise a tooooon of people would have been laid off immediately. Instead, even people who couldn’t do any work at all due to lack of child care were able to be paid, maintain insurance and benefits. They had to act so quickly.
- gexla 4y ago
  I didn't say there was no fraud in the PPP program. The OP comment didn't mention the PPP specifically as stimulus. The context of the article, is individuals investing money in meme stocks. The PPP went to business owners (with the assumption they would pay employees rather than laying them off) and likely wasn't being used for meme stocks. I was reading through the WSB Reddit sub at the time. There was a lot of chatter there about people using their personal stimulus payments for investing in meme stocks. I also spent a lot of time on Reddit subs checking chatter on PPP and EIDL. Of the two, my guess is there was a lot more widespread fraud (more people involved, but with smaller disbursements) with the EIDL. The EIDL was giving out 1K per employee (up to 10K) for anyone who claimed they were business owners. That didn't have to be paid back.

fredgrott 4y ago

How is a check for a tax credit wasteful? No really explain that logic as when we give tax credits to business we do not then again use the same screwed up logic the biggest example, the Trump org tax credit check from early 2000s. in fact now that the IRs know it was base don fraud there still asking for it back.

idiotsecant 4y ago

No, the worst by orders of magnitude was the fed QE. It lead to system-breaking levels of wealth transfer.

nouveaux 4y ago

This and the arm chair government spending police in this thread is completely wrong. The PPP helped a ton of small businesses who needed it. I, along with many small business owners in our industry got PPP, used it correctly on employee payroll, rent and utilities. It took me all of 30 min to apply for each of the PPP rounds. It took me about the same amount of time to apply for forgiveness. Of course there were problems with the wrong people getting their hands on the money. If you actually put up a ton of filters to make sure the wrong people didn't get the money, it would have delayed the actual people needing money from getting it. The right thing to do is to hand out the money fast and go after the abusers later. These comments are the reason why the small guys always gets the short end of the stick. The big companies have their army of people to solve problems. The small guys are the ones who need it fast without the bureaucracy. Comments like "too much waste" and "shameful" do not hurt the big companies one bit. They just put up another road block for the small guys.

mdoms 4y ago
No one had said stimulus wasn't needed. It's perfectly valid to believe that PPP was bad policy and also that a targeted stimulus was necessary.
zapataband1 4y ago
The wrong people getting the money is exactly what people are criticizing. I think you just disagree on the ways of preventing it. Chicago used 60% (300million) of relief funds on police personnel costs, it's not just the business aspect that was fucked: https://blockclubchicago.org/2021/02/18/chicago-used-60-of-discretionary-covid-19-funding-from-feds-on-police-its-immoral-critics-say/ https://blockclubchicago.org/2021/02/18/chicago-used-60-of-d...
- Thorrez 4y ago
  Is that PPP?
  - fundad 4y ago
    It had an impact on keeping paychecks going to people, cops can buy meme stocks. So can arms dealers. We’re worsening inflation by flooding military contractors with money too.

baskethead 4y ago

The PPP was precisely Bernanke's "Dropping money from helicopters" scenario. I think the fear of a Depression was real, and the government was willing to pull the level on the most outrageous tool they had, which was drop money from the skies into the pockets of people who could spend it. Of course I think that was wrong, but I know exactly where this came from, and it was a playbook that was broadcasted by Bernanke I believe decades ago to fight a Depression. At least we can all agree that it worked, although a little too well, which is why asset prices have skyrocketed and inflation has gone horribly wrong.

maigret 4y ago
The action of the FED was clearly faster, heavier and in the end better than the ECB. As a result, the FED was able to increase the interest rates faster. Sure it was not perfect but "good enough".
- sofixa 4y ago
  > The action of the FED was clearly faster, heavier.. than the ECB Well of course, the situation was vastly different. First, in most EU countries there were very few people losing their jobs due to various existing or expanded temporary/partial/etc. unemployment schemes which meant that people kept their jobs, but were paid by the local government instead of the business. Second, the ECB didn't have the required authority to do what needed to be done, and it required negotiations between the eurozone members to agree on how to proceed in regards to loans. And third, actions were taken locally at each government level.

krnlpnc 4y ago

Yup, instead of providing a reasonable recurring "stimulus" income directly (along with suspending rent/loans) during the emergency, PPP loans funneled massive amounts of money into "business owners" pockets. The loans were meant to be used for payroll but the process was so opaque and full of loopholes that business owners could simply play a shell game and keep the funds, or some people even created businesses to receive it. What irritates me is that this is another instance the heavily flawed "trickle down" concept. Companies time and time again act against the best interest of individuals. PPP only further enriched a small subset of business owners at the expense of individual taxpayers. A clear wink-and-a-handshake "deal" to funnel huge amounts of government money into corporations with minimal oversight. If the money had gone directly to people instead, it could have been spent as normal, and that would have done more to help local SMALL businesses stay afloat. Plus the business owners who had to close for lockdowns would have been receiving regular benefits too and rent/loans should have been suspended.

LorenPechtel 4y ago

The problem was that the lack of controls meant it was so easy for the fraudsters to set up situations where they would get the money and not face the repercussions. We saw the same thing with unemployment--the system got overwhelmed so they quit checking and the result was a lot of identity thieves collected unemployment for workers who weren't actually unemployed. (Of course the real problem is the unemployment system has been deliberately kept dysfunctional because that reduces the amount they have to pay out.)