how is the US going to pay for the relief package?

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Put me solidly in the "probably not the time to ask the question" camp. We have more important immediate concerns.
 
Unfortunately, it doesn’t end here. What happens in three or four months? This isn’t the last injection of money to suffocate the virus.
 
Occurred to me if we test every person in this country @ $40 per test,(test cost according to Dr. Peter Attia), we'd have a more accurate picture of the real numbers and would have been more cost effective than the relief package. And if we'd issued N95 masks to everyone, rather than complete self isolation, more efficient. Sounds glib and hindsight is 20/20, but throwing out my thoughts.
 
IMATERP said:
Unfortunately, it doesn’t end here. What happens in three or four months? This isn’t the last injection of money to suffocate the virus.
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I wonder? I have been confused with the shutdown of restaurants for example, while still allowing curbside pick-up or delivery. In our manufacturing plants, we have modified our breaks and lunches to only allow 1 person at small tables, and for longer/larger tables, we have adhered to the 6' rule. Couldn't the same be done for restaurants? Of course, with the exception of those already living together sitting next to each other (as they do at home). It could help somewhat I would think on numerous fronts - revenue for restaurant, income for workers, less "stir crazy" for people... And yes I understand you have to open the doors, etc. Those can be mitigated as well. I don't propose that for the high density areas that are already majorly hit (NYC), but why not elsewhere?
 
QE4? QE1000? As long as we can buy back our debt without repercussions, who cares. Congress and the Fed decided years ago (after the great recession) that they didn't.
 
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This relief is probably necessary, but yet not one politician -that I'm aware of -has even mentioned that this money does not come from nowhere and eventually there will be a price to pay. But I can sleep better knowing the Kennedy Center got some funds.
 
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MichaelB said:
...I’d say this is the best $2T we’ve ever spent.
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mystang52 said:
This relief is probably necessary, but yet not one politician -that I'm aware of -has even mentioned that this money does not come from nowhere and eventually there will be a price to pay....
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When your water pipes are broke and your house is filling with water..... how you are going to pay for the water to be stopped isn't at the top of the list.
 
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We'll set up a Go Fund Me and pay it off quickly.
 
Mint one trillion dollar coin and put it in the vault. If it gets stolen no one can cash it anyway.
 
Tiger8693 said:
I wonder? I have been confused with the shutdown of restaurants for example, while still allowing curbside pick-up or delivery. In our manufacturing plants, we have modified our breaks and lunches to only allow 1 person at small tables, and for longer/larger tables, we have adhered to the 6' rule. Couldn't the same be done for restaurants? Of course, with the exception of those already living together sitting next to each other (as they do at home). It could help somewhat I would think on numerous fronts - revenue for restaurant, income for workers, less "stir crazy" for people... And yes I understand you have to open the doors, etc. Those can be mitigated as well. I don't propose that for the high density areas that are already majorly hit (NYC), but why not elsewhere?
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I wondered about this as well, as it could be done.
However, people (the customers) and even the restaurant/bar owners would constantly cross the line and pack in the people.

Sadly it won't work as it seems everyone has the "right" to do as they please regardless of the rules, so shutting businesses is easier to enforce.
 
If giving everyone $1200 is a good idea, wouldn't giving everyone $1,000,000 be an even better idea? :)

If giving $ to bailout airlines is a good idea, wouldn't giving every business whatever they need be an even better idea? :)
 
copyright1997reloaded said:
If giving everyone $1200 is a good idea, wouldn't giving everyone $1,000,000 be an even better idea? :)

If giving $ to bailout airlines is a good idea, wouldn't giving every business whatever they need be an even better idea? :)
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Some people will. That is why the initial draft of the legislation had so little transparency and why the final legislation had a signing statement limiting accountability.
 
Fed Gov could ban all state lottery and start a new federal super lotto, with the " House" keeping 40 %. Heck, this could fund all government.
 
Rianne said:
Occurred to me if we test every person in this country @ $40 per test,(test cost according to Dr. Peter Attia), we'd have a more accurate picture of the real numbers and would have been more cost effective than the relief package. And if we'd issued N95 masks to everyone, rather than complete self isolation, more efficient. Sounds glib and hindsight is 20/20, but throwing out my thoughts.
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It's not the money, but the supply chain to produce the test kits.

Even the lousy masks cannot be produced fast enough. Nor Purell. Nor alcohol. Nor TP.
 
Unlike us, the government use ink cartridges that never run out of ink and unlike us, there can get all the paper products they want. At this rate at least they will solve the TP shortage "as in, it ain't going to be worth the paper it's printed on".


s-l400.jpg
 
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We will never pay off our national debt and it is not necessary as long as we can keep the debt/GDP ratio at a reasonable level. According to the World Bank <77% of GDP. As of 2/20 it was 23.3T/21.7T=107% and with the latest tax cut we know we will have >1T for the next 10 years. That was before this latest crisis.

There are 4 ways pay down the debt

1)Cut Spending
2)Raise Taxes
3)Increase GDP
4)Shift spending to areas that create the most jobs

The most logical way to approach it is a combination of each.

My preferences would be -
A) Cut spending primarily by reducing the military budget and taking action to ensure the continuation of the Social Security system.
B) Raise taxes by adjusting our tax rate structure. This worked after WWII when the debt/GDP ratio was 120% and was reduced to as low as 31.7% in 1974. We have lots of wealth today but it is concentrated at the very top of the income scale.
C) Increase GDP by keeping rates low (already there), increase real wages (if wages grow above inflation then consumers have more disposable to spend), increase global growth (remove trade barriers and encourage global economic cooperation)
D) Have a massive infrastructure plan (spending on bridges, roads, and public buildings), encourage education for everyone in one form or another (education create jobs and job availability), move to more sustainable energy sources (this would create millions of jobs as we transition from fossil fuels)

We can do this is just takes political will and that will require drastic changes in our election system to remove the influences that control our decision making.
 
Beststash said:
There are 4 ways pay down the debt

1)Cut Spending
2)Raise Taxes
3)Increase GDP
4)Shift spending to areas that create the most jobs
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You forgot 5) Buy back your own debt. QE1/2/3, remember? And now it's happening again.

This will always work in low inflation when the dollar is the gold standard, there is no other world reserve currency.
 
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GTFan said:
You forgot 5) Buy back your own debt. QE1/2/3, remember? And now it's happening again.

This will always work in low inflation when the dollar is the gold standard, there is no other world reserve currency.
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Never thought about that....but wouldn't that be very inflationary? I admit I can't get my brain around QE. I think of it as an IOU which would exchange bonds for reserves? I guess it would depend on how we define debt? It just seems a "magical" way to cure all financial transgressions?
 
The money is all going "somewhere" so eventually it should settle out. Maybe we will recapture through inheritance taxes if the money is flowing to the ultra rich.

The actual loss is the loss in productivity, which I think is something you could calculate from unemployment figures.

If 10 million extra are unemployed and you assign $200 a day to each of them, then that is a loss of 2 billion per day. After we are 100 days into this mess, it is 200 billion dollars.

If we actually burned up two trillion in lost productivity, that would be years of this.
 
VAT on everything. 1 or 2% to start with.
 
Clone said:
VAT on everything. 1 or 2% to start with.
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If they actually *needed* to pay back this relief money, something like a CV19 VAT of 2% could do it.

I don't think we need to pay back anything though.

I view the USA as a early bitcoin miner and everyone else in the world is coming in later in the game...we mined all the cheap stuff.
 
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