Fiscal Stimulus Measures

[Orphia Nay]

What are they, and do they work to benefit nations and individuals?


The US appear to have agreed on a stimulus bill.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/20/mcc...to-900-billion-coronavirus-stimulus-deal.html

"The relief plan includes direct payments of $600 to most adults and $600 per child, Pelosi and Schumer said in a statement."

There is more at the link.


This is what Australia has done in their stimulus plan.

https://treasury.gov.au/coronavirus


Would anyone argue that a stimulus plan has a direct or indirect effect on coronavirus abatement measures?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The stimulus is absurdly haphazard. A couple dollars here and there, I'm not sure what effect is supposed to happen.

OTOH the unemployment benefit for self-employed persons has been a godsend for me and I'm sure a lot of people.

What has been typical of the people in charge of both parties is that loans and business rescues have been siphoned off by large corporations and businesses. A lot of small business owners who should have benefitted didn't and are unlikely to with the latest money.

The whole planet is going to need a stimulus after this to prevent a serious depression. I'm not sure how the coming depression will affect countries like Oz and New Zealand that managed to control the virus significantly better than countries like those in the Americas and Europe.

Africa and Asia are also unique in how this is affecting them. I'm less knowledgeable about those areas of the planet.

I'm not sure how many people realize how this pandemic is going to affect everyone financially. It's going to depend on what happens in the next few months.

 

[Leftus]

What are they, and do they work to benefit nations and individuals?


The US appear to have agreed on a stimulus bill.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/20/mcc...to-900-billion-coronavirus-stimulus-deal.html

"The relief plan includes direct payments of $600 to most adults and $600 per child, Pelosi and Schumer said in a statement."

There is more at the link.


This is what Australia has done in their stimulus plan.

https://treasury.gov.au/coronavirus


Would anyone argue that a stimulus plan has a direct or indirect effect on coronavirus abatement measures?

I doubt it will make a difference at all. For those who need it, too little, too late. For those who don't, we will just piss it away. And then someone, way down the line, gets to foot the bill. Looking at you, the children of the Millennials. Maybe I'll buy a new graphics card, if they ever come on the open market. Or a new CPU.

I'll likely spend about 2 hours or so on it, so that's the effect it will have on me. Yet another spreadsheet to submit, but I've yet to read the bill, or the internal documents, to find out what kind of payment it is. If it's exactly the same as last time, I might be able to save some work with copy and paste, but who knows.

And maybe 20 hours of meetings to discuss this update. Which won't even be scheduled until January.

 

[Leftus]

My other thought on this is those who could go back to work, already have. The economic downturn is being enforced by the government. You can't stimulate what you are, at the same time, constricting. You can give out all the money you want, but with nothing to spend it on, where is it going to go?

 

[blutoski]

My other thought on this is those who could go back to work, already have. The economic downturn is being enforced by the government. You can't stimulate what you are, at the same time, constricting. You can give out all the money you want, but with nothing to spend it on, where is it going to go?

(looks at forum...) Bitcoin?

 

[Meadmaker]

I doubt it will make a difference at all. For those who need it, too little, too late. For those who don't, we will just piss it away. And then someone, way down the line, gets to foot the bill. Looking at you, the children of the Millennials. Maybe I'll buy a new graphics card, if they ever come on the open market. Or a new CPU.

I'll likely spend about 2 hours or so on it, so that's the effect it will have on me. Yet another spreadsheet to submit, but I've yet to read the bill, or the internal documents, to find out what kind of payment it is. If it's exactly the same as last time, I might be able to save some work with copy and paste, but who knows.

And maybe 20 hours of meetings to discuss this update. Which won't even be scheduled until January.

600 dollars per person, including all dependents this time. Reduced if you made over 75,000 in 2019, or 150,000 married filing jointly. I'm not sure of the cutoff income where it drops to zero.


I keep thinking that money has to mean something and that all this borrowing has to be bad, but the government keeps doing it and the economy hasn't collapsed yet. Well, it did in 2009, for a year or so, but that was due to consumer borrowing more than government borrowing.

I can't figure it out. 30 trillion dollars in national debt, and no one seems to mind. Still I liked the way things were at the end of the Clinton administration, when we were trying to figure out how to spend the surplus.

 

[Leftus]

600 dollars per person, including all dependents this time. Reduced if you made over 75,000 in 2019, or 150,000 married filing jointly. I'm not sure of the cutoff income where it drops to zero.

It's a drop of 50 bucks for every 1000 over 75,000. So that is 12K plus 75 which puts the cutoff at 87K.

I might not actually get anything.

Treasury Secretary says it will start to go out next week. That's going to be a bit of a push, as a good number of people are off for the next two weeks, but whatever.

 

[Jungle Jim]

It's a drop of 50 bucks for every 1000 over 75,000. So that is 12K plus 75 which puts the cutoff at 87K.

I might not actually get anything.

Treasury Secretary says it will start to go out next week. That's going to be a bit of a push, as a good number of people are off for the next two weeks, but whatever.

Most will be distributed through direct deposit.

 

[Leftus]

Most will be distributed through direct deposit.

Yes, but it has to be coded into the Individual Master File by somebody. Those people are very senior and, in my decade of experience here, most senior employees at the IRS take off the last two weeks of the year.

There are some programmers around, doing the end of year switch over from 2020 to 2021. So it's not impossible, but a stretch.

Also, I've not seen the work order yet. Not that I have to see it, but I would see it as part of my duties. I get to update the rules! Fun times. So far, ZERO meetings, again, because most of the senior folks are out. But the analysts responsible for writing the rules for the programmers to follow have been out.

 

[ServiceSoon]

600 dollars per person, including all dependents this time. Reduced if you made over 75,000 in 2019, or 150,000 married filing jointly. I'm not sure of the cutoff income where it drops to zero.


I keep thinking that money has to mean something and that all this borrowing has to be bad, but the government keeps doing it and the economy hasn't collapsed yet. Well, it did in 2009, for a year or so, but that was due to consumer borrowing more than government borrowing.

I can't figure it out. 30 trillion dollars in national debt, and no one seems to mind. Still I liked the way things were at the end of the Clinton administration, when we were trying to figure out how to spend the surplus.

Have you read up on the new heterodoxy that is Modern Monetary Theory? Made its way into a academic textbook this year. Politicians want to avoid the criticism that they should not increase the national debt for their projects because of the consequences that increase it debt can cause. MMT to the rescue.

 

[dudalb]

Have you read up on the new heterodoxy that is Modern Monetary Theory? Made its way into a academic textbook this year. Politicians want to avoid the criticism that they should not increase the national debt for their projects because of the consequences that increase it debt can cause. MMT to the rescue.

Here comes "Goldbug" nonsense,with the "Hiddnen Hand " fallacy thrown in.

 

[psionl0]

Here comes "Goldbug" nonsense,with the "Hiddnen Hand " fallacy thrown in.

Why do you think that there will never be any consequences to this endless borrowing? Is it because the USD will never be replaced as the de-facto world currency or because there is always more of the planet that can be consumed to service the debt?

 

[Leftus]

Have you read up on the new heterodoxy that is Modern Monetary Theory? Made its way into a academic textbook this year. Politicians want to avoid the criticism that they should not increase the national debt for their projects because of the consequences that increase it debt can cause. MMT to the rescue.

It would make money worthless, on a technical level. What gives the dollar it's value is a generally agreed on value. If you make it have no meaning, which is exactly what MMT does, the government says, OK now we have X and it's all good, nobody will want the dollar because it's perceived value is nothing.

History is replete with examples of central governments trying to print their way out of debt. It has never worked, short or long term. The theory that it just hasn't been tried at a big enough scale is foolhardy.

 

[Marcus]

The stimulus is absurdly haphazard. A couple dollars here and there, I'm not sure what effect is supposed to happen.

OTOH the unemployment benefit for self-employed persons has been a godsend for me and I'm sure a lot of people.

What has been typical of the people in charge of both parties is that loans and business rescues have been siphoned off by large corporations and businesses. A lot of small business owners who should have benefitted didn't and are unlikely to with the latest money.

The whole planet is going to need a stimulus after this to prevent a serious depression. I'm not sure how the coming depression will affect countries like Oz and New Zealand that managed to control the virus significantly better than countries like those in the Americas and Europe.

Africa and Asia are also unique in how this is affecting them. I'm less knowledgeable about those areas of the planet.

I'm not sure how many people realize how this pandemic is going to affect everyone financially. It's going to depend on what happens in the next few months.

I'm also self-employed and the unemployment payments have been very helpful.

The new ones would be as well, but this morning Trump is threatening to veto the bill. He didn't take part in the negotiations but now he wants to screw everything up. I wish he would go back to his election conspiracies
and leave this to the grownups.

 

[gnome]

I'm starting to think we can start to measure his acceptance of the election result by how spiteful his policy decisions are.

 

[Marcus]

The vote margin on the bill was enough to override a veto, IF all the Republicans voted the same way on the overide, I'm not sure they would. Plus many have gone home already.

 

[Tippit]

It would make money worthless, on a technical level. What gives the dollar it's value is a generally agreed on value. If you make it have no meaning, which is exactly what MMT does, the government says, OK now we have X and it's all good, nobody will want the dollar because it's perceived value is nothing.

History is replete with examples of central governments trying to print their way out of debt. It has never worked, short or long term. The theory that it just hasn't been tried at a big enough scale is foolhardy.

This is essentially the way things are now. MMT just changes a few technical aspects related to the separation of the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury, and abandons all pretense of monetary sanity. The reason the US Dollar still has value, is because the US Military still forces most of the rest of the world to pay for oil, the lifeblood of economy, in dollars.

 

[Orphia Nay]

I think I saw Trump say on Twitter that in the US, the stimulus for individuals is now going to be $2000 now, and $2000 later.

CNN are saying it won't happen, or he's holding it up. This is now:

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
·
42m
Good news on Covid Relief Bill. Information to follow!

 

[gnome]

The "good news" was that the plan that he kept threatening to derail he's now decided not to. Look how good he is to us!

 

[Meadmaker]

The "good news" was that the plan that he kept threatening to derail he's now decided not to. Look how good he is to us!

We are forever in his debt. At the very least, we are forever in debt.