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Interesting dilemma. The idea was to get that cash out as quickly as possible, which meant lowering barriers. Even with the reduced thresholds, people with sm

by gumby 3y ago

Interesting dilemma. The idea was to get that cash out as quickly as possible, which meant lowering barriers. Even with the reduced thresholds, people with small businesses like restaurants, dry cleaning, etc had trouble as they weren’t used to filling out government forms. Of course that made it easier for fraudsters, but which is worse: not getting cash into the economy or having to try to claw back fraudulent dispersals? There isn’t an easy answer to this. In retrospect it might have been better to rope in the accountants and/or payroll companies rather than the banks — most companies, even tiny ones, hire someone to do the books and file the tax returns, and those people have some legal accountability and already have access to the required data.

bradleyjg 3y ago
> which is worse: not getting cash into the economy or having to try to claw back fraudulent dispersals The latter by far. “Getting cash into the economy” is the solution to a demand shortfall recession. There wasn’t a demand shortfall. There was nothing to stimulate because everything was closed. We all saw the results in unprecedented inflation acceleration. Bad policy has real consequences.
- gumby 3y ago
  > We all saw the results in unprecedented inflation acceleration Please argue your point without hyperbole. Inflationary periods from the 1970s back to the gold strike shocks of the 19th century were both much larger and, in the gold standard era, faster.
- sofixa 3y ago
  > “Getting cash into the economy” is the solution to a demand shortfall recession. There wasn’t a demand shortfall. There was nothing to stimulate because everything was closed. Instead of "cash into the economy" for the sake of stopping a recession based on a demand shortfall, you should look at it as "cash into the economy" to prevent individuals who no longer had any income, and companies which no longer had customers from going bankrupt. Covering the mess of mass bankruptcies, hunger and homelessness was going to be drastically harder. Potential or real inflation are absolutely worth it as tradeoffs.
  - bradleyjg 3y ago
    We knew who had lost income vs 2019 based on tax records. How is sending money to everyone up to generous income caps, and calling them stimulus checks, consistent with you theory for the motivation of the helicopter money drop bills?
tpxl 3y ago
> which is worse: not getting cash into the economy or having to try to claw back fraudulent dispersals? There isn’t an easy answer to this. There is an easy answer to this that was obvious from the start. Give people money instead of businesses. You can get a great estimate of which people need how much from the tax returns. This is going to relieve most problems. There are other problems, like rents that have to be paid even if there are no employees, but you can address that directly instead of giving free money to people buying lambos.

by gumby 3y ago

bradleyjg 3y ago

> which is worse: not getting cash into the economy or having to try to claw back fraudulent dispersals The latter by far. “Getting cash into the economy” is the solution to a demand shortfall recession. There wasn’t a demand shortfall. There was nothing to stimulate because everything was closed. We all saw the results in unprecedented inflation acceleration. Bad policy has real consequences.

gumby 3y ago
> We all saw the results in unprecedented inflation acceleration Please argue your point without hyperbole. Inflationary periods from the 1970s back to the gold strike shocks of the 19th century were both much larger and, in the gold standard era, faster.
sofixa 3y ago
> “Getting cash into the economy” is the solution to a demand shortfall recession. There wasn’t a demand shortfall. There was nothing to stimulate because everything was closed. Instead of "cash into the economy" for the sake of stopping a recession based on a demand shortfall, you should look at it as "cash into the economy" to prevent individuals who no longer had any income, and companies which no longer had customers from going bankrupt. Covering the mess of mass bankruptcies, hunger and homelessness was going to be drastically harder. Potential or real inflation are absolutely worth it as tradeoffs.
- bradleyjg 3y ago
  We knew who had lost income vs 2019 based on tax records. How is sending money to everyone up to generous income caps, and calling them stimulus checks, consistent with you theory for the motivation of the helicopter money drop bills?

tpxl 3y ago

> which is worse: not getting cash into the economy or having to try to claw back fraudulent dispersals? There isn’t an easy answer to this. There is an easy answer to this that was obvious from the start. Give people money instead of businesses. You can get a great estimate of which people need how much from the tax returns. This is going to relieve most problems. There are other problems, like rents that have to be paid even if there are no employees, but you can address that directly instead of giving free money to people buying lambos.