Current Events > Stimulus checks and boosted unemployment are bad for the lower and middle class

(+) Yeah! (+)

The government is paying for this crisis at the cost of inflation, not tax dollars. Which will fuck over the poor the most long term. The rich own assets that will inflate as well and won't feel the pain that's coming as much as a result of all of this spending like poorer Americans will.

Just a word of warning.

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you know what else is bad for the lower and middle classes? not being able to afford food and rent.

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They should be forced back into minimum wage employment and risk death to themselves and their family, on a wage they cannot afford to live and eat on instead. If they die, fuck them because they are poor. This is the nation we want. Meanwhile, corporations with billions of dollars get relief money so these poor billionaires don't have to tap into their personal funds to pay for their own companies they can afford to float during a national crisis.

THIS is the nation we want. This is the direction we need to go. America - fuck the people.

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Medussa posted...

you know what else is bad for the lower and middle classes? not being able to afford food and rent.

Yeah, and if the dollar collapses Americans are gonna be hit with the harsh reality that the vast majority of us have been living beyond our means our entire lives. Which means we will have to actually grow our own food and make our own goods since foreign countries wont be interested in taking our currency as payment.

Honestly we deserve it. We've used and abused our place of financial influence on the rest of the world long enough. We're a bunch of spoiled fucks and our day of reckoning is coming sooner rather than later given recent events.

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MabusIncarnate posted...

They should be forced back into minimum wage employment and risk death to themselves and their family, on a wage they cannot afford to live and eat on instead. If they die, fuck them because they are poor. This is the nation we want. Meanwhile, corporations with billions of dollars get relief money so these poor billionaires don't have to tap into their personal funds to pay for their own companies they can afford to float during a national crisis.

THIS is the nation we want. This is the direction we need to go. America - fuck the people.

We're not saving corporate america or mainstreet america tbh. Both have been operating on the concept of cheap money for loan and not bothering to save up for a rainy day. We're just delaying the inevitable

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Solid Snake07 posted...

The government is paying for this crisis at the cost of inflation, not tax dollars. Which will fuck over the poor the most long term. The rich own assets that will inflate as well and won't feel the pain that's coming as much as a result of all of this spending like poorer Americans will.

Just a word of warning.

People aren't spending the goods on regular commodities, they are going to rent, medical expenses, daily goods, etc. While that could lead to inflation in the price of food products, there is nothing to suggest we will get inflation for everything.

And again, people complain about stimulus checks and unemployment benefits but stay silent for the mass revenue that banks are pulling from the small business loans or how it took the federal government just a few days to pass funding bills for big businesses but spend weeks debating what to do for the lower and middle class.

We need Medicare for all.

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pistachio12 posted...

People aren't spending the goods on regular commodities, they are going to rent, medical expenses, daily goods, etc. While that could lead to inflation in the price of food products, there is nothing to suggest we will get inflation for everything.

And again, people complain about stimulus checks and unemployment benefits but stay silent for the mass revenue that banks are pulling from the small business loans or how it took the federal government just a few days to pass funding bills for big businesses but spend weeks debating what to do for the lower and middle class.

Oh, the "paycheck protection" loans are the worst of the bunch. There's nothing to indicate that we aren't protecting the paychecks of workers in industries that will have little to no demand in the near future when Americans wise up and realize they actually need to save money instead of blowing it on going out to eat and taking vacations.

Not to mention the fact that it's been wildly abused by financial institutions for basically free grant money from the government with almost no oversight so long as they only "borrowed" less than 2 million dollars.

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https://tinyurl.com/y3rkquqc

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R1masher posted...

https://tinyurl.com/y3rkquqc

"The rest of the world should shoulder the burden while our government prints more money for us"

In all fairness, the average person isn't financially literate enough to understand the implications here. Which is exacly why we deserve the reality check barreling our way

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so, do you have a solution? (preferably, one that doesn't leave a ton of people dead or homeless) or are you just here to masturbate over how much smarter you are than everyone else?

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Solid Snake07 posted...

Which is exacly why we deserve the reality check barreling our way

Arent you a couple decades too old to be acting like an edgy teenager

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Medussa posted...

so, do you have a solution? (preferably, one that doesn't leave a ton of people dead or homeless) or are you just here to masturbate over how much smarter you are than everyone else?

I mastubate to pornography like most everyone else.

Um.......I dont know if there really is a "good" solution at this point. The solution is for Americans(and coroporations/businesses) to have been responsible enough to save a safety net for themselves to make it through a crisis like this, but it's very likely that boat has sailed. The hard truth is that sometimes there are no good solutions. But there are always bad ones. And I can promise you what you're representatives have been passing is a culmination of bad solutions that they are passing under the optics that they're looking out for you. But they definitely aren't. They're very likely, irreversibly fucking you over.

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MacadamianNut3 posted...

Arent you a couple decades too old to be acting like an edgy teenager

I'm only a little over a decade removed from my teenage years. And being edgy about common sense economics is quite the paradox

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So you don't know the solution, but it's definitely not the one that helps people feed themselves and keep a roof over their heads.

This entire situation is a failure of capitalism and our leadership. We don't need to serve the economy, we need to change it to fit our needs (aka our lives)

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Blue_Dream87 posted...

So you don't know the solution, but it's definitely not the one that helps people feed themselves and keep a roof over their heads.

*For now*

Blue_Dream87 posted...

This entire situation is a failure of capitalism and our leadership. We don't need to serve the economy, we need to change it to fit our needs (aka our lives)

This is a result of terribly irresponsible behaviour on the half of the federal reserve for likely your entire life. Blame it on capitalism if you want, no other economic model would have thrived this far much less further.

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Solid Snake07 posted...

There's nothing to indicate that we aren't protecting the paychecks of workers in industries that will have little to no demand in the near future when Americans wise up and realize they actually need to save money instead of blowing it on going out to eat and taking vacations.

So with this and the later posts, your problem seems to be that Americans don't know how to save and should thus be punished for not knowing how to save.

Let me ask you these then:
1) What evidence do you have that a majority of Americans don't know "how" to save?
2) What evidence do you have that a majority of Americans are intentionally choosing not to save to instead go on vacation or eat out?
3) Is there any evidence at the moment to suggest that if a majority of Americans were better at saving money, there would be no need for any financial stimulus during these past 4+ months?

You also failed to address my earlier statement about how you know this current situation will lead to inflation. What evidence do you have for that?

pistachio12 posted...

1) What evidence do you have that a majority of Americans don't know "how" to save?

The vast majority of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck and thriving off of debt to live in houses and drive cars they can't afford. This isn't exacly a secret. 4 out if 5 Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and that's not just people who aren't making very much money.

pistachio12 posted...

2) What evidence do you have that a majority of Americans are intentionally choosing not to save to instead go on vacation or eat out?

This is basically the same question.....once again not a secret or contested.

pistachio12 posted...

3) Is there any evidence at the moment to suggest that if a majority of Americans were better at saving money, there would be no need for any financial stimulus during these past 4+ months?

Is there any evidence that if Americans were responsible enough to save up an emergency fund to cover months of expenses would lessen the need of a stimulus to cover their expenses?.....you might want to think that line of thought out a little more.

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pistachio12 posted...

You also failed to address my earlier statement about how you know this current situation will lead to inflation. What evidence do you have for that?

Creating money without adding productivity to the pot devalues the currency you're printing. You're adding buying power without adding any supply. It's simple supply and demand principle.

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The middle and lower classes getting screwed over is nothing new, that's like, America's entire MO.
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Solid Snake07 posted...

Creating money without adding productivity to the pot devalues the currency you're printing. You're adding buying power without adding any supply. It's simple supply and demand principle.

1. No one's creating money here, you're confusing monetary policy with fiscal policy.
2. Governments use fiscal policy to stimulate the economy when it's in a period of low demand, like when the country shuts down due to a pandemic. Inflation is not generally something you have to worry about when the economy is contracting (unless you live in the 70s). The government had a massive fiscal response to the 08 financial crisis, yet 2009 was our first year of deflation since the great depression. Similarly, we're actually seeing lower levels of inflation right now.

Fiscal stimulus is a sensible approach to an economic downturn, especially if it's in the form of direct cash payments or tax cuts that don't distort the market.

Broseph_Stalin posted...

1. No one's creating money here, you're confusing monetary policy with fiscal policy.
2. Governments use fiscal policy to stimulate the economy when it's in a period of low demand, like when the country shuts down due to a pandemic. Inflation is not generally something you have to worry about when the economy is contracting (unless you live in the 70s). The government had a massive fiscal response to the 08 financial crisis, yet 2009 was our first year of deflation since the great depression. Similarly, we're actually seeing lower levels of inflation right now.

Fiscal stimulus is a sensible approach to an economic downturn, especially if it's in the form of direct cash payments or tax cuts that don't distort the market.

Best answer.

Also, I'll just mention UBI and I'm out

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Broseph_Stalin posted...

1. No one's creating money here, you're confusing monetary policy with fiscal policy.
2. Governments use fiscal policy to stimulate the economy when it's in a period of low demand, like when the country shuts down due to a pandemic. Inflation is not generally something you have to worry about when the economy is contracting (unless you live in the 70s). The government had a massive fiscal response to the 08 financial crisis, yet 2009 was our first year of deflation since the great depression. Similarly, we're actually seeing lower levels of inflation right now.

Fiscal stimulus is a sensible approach to an economic downturn, especially if it's in the form of direct cash payments or tax cuts that don't distort the market.

Bootstraps tho.

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Broseph_Stalin posted...

No one's creating money here, you're confusing monetary policy with fiscal policy.

We most definitely are "creating money"

The federal reserve is printing roughly about $0.50 for every dollar being spent on these relief acts. Monetary and fiscal policy are acting in unison in the face of an unprecedented modern economic crisis.

Broseph_Stalin posted...

Governments use fiscal policy to stimulate the economy when it's in a period of low demand, like when the country shuts down due to a pandemic. Inflation is not generally something you have to worry about when the economy is contracting (unless you live in the 70s). The government had a massive fiscal response to the 08 financial crisis, yet 2009 was our first year of deflation since the great depression. Similarly, we're actually seeing lower levels of inflation right now.

The economy is contracting and will most likely continue to do so into the foreseeable future. The fiscal policy we're seeing is just floating everthing in the hopes that everything will continue as normal when this passes. But it's artificially floating it and there's no gurantee that returning to normal will even happen, much less in the near future.

Inflation is more or less a good case scenario. I'm more concerned with the dollar losing value as an international currency.

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Solid Snake07 posted...

We most definitely are "creating money"

The federal reserve is printing roughly about $0.50 for every dollar being spent on these relief acts. Monetary and fiscal policy are acting in unison in the face of an unprecedented modern economic crisis.

You're confusing monetary and fiscal policy again. The fed can't actually print money but it does control the supply of money. That has nothing to do with fiscal policy however, the money congress spends comes from tax revenue or borrowing. The fed does NOT print money to fund fiscal policy like people think. If that were the case we would be seeing the inflation levels you're claiming.

Solid Snake07 posted...

The fiscal policy we're seeing is just floating everthing in the hopes that everything will continue as normal when this passes. But it's artificially floating it and there's no gurantee that returning to normal will even happen, much less in the near future.

The point of a fiscal stimulus is to stop demand from continuously falling which eventually leads to a deflationary spiral. It's why financial panics used to lead to decade long depressions. And the government response to the pandemic, the 08 financial crisis, etc is why we don't have depressions these days. It's good policy.

There isn't gonna be general inflation because the spending combats the deflationary effect of the collapse in demand that's driven largely by a drop in spending by the wealthy

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Solid Snake07 posted...

The solution is for Americans(and coroporations/businesses) to have been responsible enough to save a safety net for themselves to make it through a crisis like this

How are people who are literally living paycheck to paycheck supposed to do this?

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Solar_Crimson posted...

How are people who are literally living paycheck to paycheck supposed to do this?

Their bootstraps duh

Anyways TC is of the mindset that the middle and lower classes put themselves in this situation and not the upper class that has exploited them for the past 50 years, so his opinion means jack.

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losing your house and starving is bad too.

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Wheres my stim check#2?

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Broseph_Stalin posted...

You're confusing monetary and fiscal policy again. The fed can't actually print money but it does control the supply of money. That has nothing to do with fiscal policy however, the money congress spends comes from tax revenue or borrowing. The fed does NOT print money to fund fiscal policy like people think. If that were the case we would be seeing the inflation levels you're claiming.

The point of a fiscal stimulus is to stop demand from continuously falling which eventually leads to a deflationary spiral. It's why financial panics used to lead to decade long depressions. And the government response to the pandemic, the 08 financial crisis, etc is why we don't have depressions these days. It's good policy.

You seem fairly knowledgeable on the subject. Are you in economics or is it just an interest of yours?

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Solid Snake07 posted...

The vast majority of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck and thriving off of debt to live in houses and drive cars they can't afford. This isn't exacly a secret. 4 out if 5 Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and that's not just people who aren't making very much money.

I'm not contesting that a vast majority of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. I'm contesting that a vast majority of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck not because they don't know how to save.

Solid Snake07 posted...

This is basically the same question.....once again not a secret or contested.

Again you're equating the two. And you're not answering it. You sound like Reagan in the 80s crying about welfare queens without providing said evidence of these welfare queens.

Solid Snake07 posted...

Is there any evidence that if Americans were responsible enough to save up an emergency fund to cover months of expenses would lessen the need of a stimulus to cover their expenses?.....you might want to think that line of thought out a little more.

How many months should they save up for? Three months? Six months? A year? We don't know how long this pandemic will last nor do we know how long it will take for the economy to return to normal. It's foolish to scold people for not saving up funds when we don't know how long those funds are supposed to last.

Also, the point is that there will always be a set of Americans who don't have savings even if we radically change how Americans save. We also don't usually have the type of data to correctly determine which populations are suffering due to a specific economic crisis (although evidence also seems to suggest it routinely hits the lower class the worst in the long run), so instead of wasting time arguing over who and how much, the government provides everyone a stimulus.

Others have also addressed your shaky argument against inflation.

Broseph_Stalin posted...

1. No one's creating money here, you're confusing monetary policy with fiscal policy.
2. Governments use fiscal policy to stimulate the economy when it's in a period of low demand, like when the country shuts down due to a pandemic. Inflation is not generally something you have to worry about when the economy is contracting (unless you live in the 70s). The government had a massive fiscal response to the 08 financial crisis, yet 2009 was our first year of deflation since the great depression. Similarly, we're actually seeing lower levels of inflation right now.

Fiscal stimulus is a sensible approach to an economic downturn, especially if it's in the form of direct cash payments or tax cuts that don't distort the market.

All that needs to be said.

But TC do you actually have a single source that demonstrates the stimulus has had a significant impact on inflation, or a credible economist claiming such? Or is this just useless shitposting?

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Note: inflation went down the last couple months.
https://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Rate/CurrentInflation.asp?reloaded=true
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How much do you need to make to be considered lower or middle class?

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shockthemonkey posted...

We need to save this topic. Broseph Stalin and Antifar both agree on something and theyre both right! This is CE history right here.

Broseph is being scolded for being too liberal and getting his pay docked.

Mate, fuck off.

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Solid Snake07 posted...

drive cars they can't afford

this is why i hate long term leases.... you can't predict a bad time that will happen over the 5 years one has to pay for the car. all it takes is one fuck-up to lose everything.
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Solid Snake07 posted...

Yeah, and if the dollar collapses Americans are gonna be hit with the harsh reality that the vast majority of us have been living beyond our means our entire lives. Which means we will have to actually grow our own food and make our own goods since foreign countries wont be interested in taking our currency as payment.

Honestly we deserve it. We've used and abused our place of financial influence on the rest of the world long enough. We're a bunch of spoiled fucks and our day of reckoning is coming sooner rather than later given recent events.

Don't worry man. Socialism will fix everything. Expensive unskilled labor. That will surely put America on top.

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Conservatism is a death cult.

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Broseph_Stalin posted...

That has nothing to do with fiscal policy however, the money congress spends comes from tax revenue or borrowing. The fed does NOT print money to fund fiscal policy like people think. If that were the case we would be seeing the inflation levels you're claiming

Yeah, and most of it is being borrowed, and it's largely being borrowed from the federal reserve. They may not be physically printing currency but they are injecting capital by purchasing federal securities.

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Frolex posted...

do you actually have a single source that demonstrates the stimulus has had a significant impact on inflation, or a credible economist claiming such? Or is this just useless shitposting?

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I'm not sure how you expect me to post a case study for economic events that haven't happened yet. What's happening right now doesn't exacly have a historical precedent to follow.

If you want to read speculations then use google and stop relying on others to spoon feed you as if that's a good counter arguement.

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Solid Snake07 posted...

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I'm glad Republicans do whatever they can to destroy any safety nets and give tax cuts to their billionaire friends.

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Didn't realize you needed a source in order to voice your own opinions and speculations

So do you actually have anything to add to the conversation or are you just here to ask me to find articles for you that you won't read anyway?

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I don't mind the stimulus checks, when I'm not out of work anyway.

Solid Snake07 posted...

Didn't realize you needed a source in order to voice your own opinions and speculations

b-b-b-b-b-ut muh feels :'(

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