Economics

The fault in this policy is that it’s based on tax AGI from previous filing years.

The only litmus for whether you receive a stimulus check or not is whether you are able to prove that you lost your job or had reduced employment due to the Coronavirus.

It’s either that, or just give every American a stimulus check and claw it back on the next tax year by determining their employment status.

Edit: Wasn’t expecting this to blow up, but a lot of responses are simply “Well, why don’t we give people the cash?” or “Why would I want money that I have to give back next tax year”.

Simply put, the reason why you should in those cases not be receiving money is because your employment and thus earnings were not negatively affected by the Coronavirus. The whole point of us stimulating the economy is that we target individuals who were unemployed or had employment reduced by Coronavirus. If you still work your regular job and didn’t have any reduction in hours, then what exactly is the issue here? I retired this year, and I can most certainly tell you that I did not receive a reduction in hours from working, so there is absolutely no reason why I should have received either stimulus check.

All I did with my stimulus was invest the money. How exactly is this going to help the millions of people unemployed or have hourly reductions due to the pandemic? It’s not like I suddenly crave with my $1800 a desire to go see movies in theater, dine in restaurants, and the like.

Give the money to people that need it to avoid economic fallout from rent moratoriums and prevent business closings due to COVID. Not people like me who are just gonna invest it or buying a fucking PS5 lol.

ITCHY_JELLY

I don’t understand; my stimulus check was for $60, so it seems like there is already a sliding scale to funnel money to the lowest incomes.

arajay

That is pretty dumb. $75,000 in New York City is not the same as $75,000 in Des Moines.

small-foot

what if i made over $75k last year but far less this year because, you know, the pandemic…?

stupid fucking system smh

jleVrt

Everyone knows $75K is the point at which you are immune to COVID-19 and it’s effect on the economy. It’s science.

dbell

We may not know what the exact right price for carbon is but we know it’s not zero

whiterice336

How does Carbon Pricing not translate directly to Carbon Taxes?

kearbear978

Good, appropriately price fossil fuels so we can FINALLY transition away from them

-BeezusHrist

More confirmation hearing talk telling people what they want to hear. The Biden administration plan doesn’t involve a carbon tax. They agree with carbon pricing in principal but have not proposed any way of implementing one.

garlicroastedpotato

I would support a cap and trade system. It would not only encourage the reduction of emissions, but it would also give a financial impetus for doing more carbon capture and sequestration.

policythwonk

If we don’t produce it, someone else will – it we dont pipe it, it will still get to market. Saudis especially will be loving it being reinstated as global energy leaders.

Flickfukper

Cutting off the ability to produce in the US does 5 things:

1) Increases corruption in already corrupt & destabilized countries
2) Basically hands OPEC the keys to control our oil, gas & fuel prices
3) Drastically increases pollution… argue if you want, but have you ever been on a rig site run by a nationalized company? When the government controls all the land and resources, there’s no checks and balances. Most nationalized companies just dump their waste directly onto the land & water. At least majors (Shell, Chevron, etc) have some legal accountability & you can force them to clean up messes. You can’t take National Oil Co to court, it ain’t happening.
4) Kills about 200-300k jobs if this goes on for a year or so
5) Hands the keys to the Republicans. Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Pennsylvania…. all swing states with huge portions of their state budgets coming from oil & gas royalties. How do you think those states will vote after their budges & jobs are decimated?

This is something I work directly with, and even as someone who voted for Biden, this is a fucking terrible idea with a bunch of shitty consequences. The Obama administration quickly realized all this during the moratorium after Deepwater Horizon, I think it’s asinine that Biden didn’t learn from any of that.

Also… all those oil & gas law changes under Trump? You know, the ones where you see headlines like “Trump Rolls Back Hundred of Oil Industry Regulations”? *Those were changes ordered & started by the Obama administration*. They were just executed under Trump. All those “getting rid of regulatory rules” didn’t actually get rid of any, it actually made them much more stringent in many ways, but that’s a post for another day.

I can also tell you that the entire BSEE & BOEM (federal gov oil & gas regulatory bodies) are being completely blindsided by this, and have been getting no guidance whatsoever. They are finding out as executive orders are being signed.

moopmoopmeep

Yes, but not by “better harvesting more stable cash flow from oil and gas royalties”.

Canada is already largely powered by hydro and nuclear; its prairie and coastal wind resources are vast; and solar production is huge during those long summer days. Expanding these resources is a far smarter bet than wasting tax money on fuels that are killing us.

Splenda

It’s funny that people consider it a victory to consume the same amount of oil as long as we pay more to import it from countries where we have no control over their environmental regulations instead of producing it here.

bourbonsoakedscholar

Long term, it’s definitely a benefit. Over the next 4 years, probably not so much

Sinsyxx

Any reasonable and responsible person knows that the transition towards primarily renewable power generation is both inevitable and quite necessary- it’s unfortunate that we have waited so long.

There are many potential opportunities for investment and new avenues of business tied to the green transition! All kinds of products to be made, innovations to be discovered, etc. It’s wise for major institutions to be getting on this bandwagon, provided such investments are made in responsible firms that have clearly articulated goals, and a reasonable chance of meeting said targets.

I look forward to what the future holds for renewable energy. It’s a necessary transition, we may as well make the very best of it, for the benefit of all of us.

Dr_seven

I am trying to wrap my head around this. Am i getting this right? BIS, which effectively is a public sector organization is gonna issue euro nomiated bonds that the ECB happily directly takes into their balance sheet?

nutbutterfly

I wish we had more data about the types of mortgages (single family, multi family, owner occupied).

I suspect there is a high incidence of landlords who are not able to collect rent, and opting not to pay their mortgages (vs digging into personal savings to keep their investments afloat, especially if contained in LLCs). Raises some interesting questions about policy making – should they be bailed out? Or is that part of the risk of owning rental property?

handlerb

The fed now owns 1/3 of all US mortgage bonds, most purchased in 2020 as part of the COVID quantitative easing program.

I wonder if they will work with delinquent homeowners differently than privately held mortgages.

rethinkingat59

It’s going to be interesting when things break.

A lot of foreclosures are being held back by forbearance agreements.

Evictions are slowed by moratoriums.

The upside for those who are behind is that they can still likely sell for a profit, and with low interest rates and low supply, that should bail them out at the beginning.

But once supply starts to increase prices are going to slide and people who waited will get caught in the trap.

Further moratoriums are only going to snow ball the problem and banks are likely going to be wary of mass modifications.

The modifications from the last crash are majorly questionable and had a very high default rate.

Depends on how far you wanna kick the can down the road.

marzenmangler

I wonder what percentage of these are small time landlords who aren’t getting rent and can’t evict?

You hate to see it.

lehigh_larry

We are fucking over an entire generation of prospective home buyers by helping existing homeowners who are in distress.

Inventory is at record low levels, causing prices to be at record high levels. Those distressed properties should be entering inventory and causing prices to settle. I feel bad for anyone who was on the cusp of buying before the pandemic.

K2Nomad

Based on the comments I’m reading I don’t think anyone quite understands how this works, as someone with considerable experience here I’ll try to explain.

Buy American and Buy America policies have existed for decades and they do nothing, mostly. One of the policies is goods can be bought in NA, the other is strictly US, I forget which is which.

Here’s a real life example. I’m a construction manager for movable bridges. Most of the mechanical equipment (i.e. motors, brakes, etc) is made overseas. If the bridge is being built with Federal funds, which they usually are, you simply must provide due diligence and a written letter showing the product can’t be bought in NA or US. Then an exemption is provided. I’ve never been denied an exemption.

Even if the product is manufactured in NA or US, you can still get an exemption if the price does not reasonably match your bid or budget. Usually there’s a specific percentage, such as 5% above budget or something.

These policies do sometimes change things, but for the most part they don’t. NA and US manufacturing just can’t compete in many areas.

I’m for the policy, I think it’s a good idea, just doesn’t have much effect.

iloveyou3001

I see the federal government now paying more for products, no longer a free market so price gouging can start. I get the whole money in country and velocity spending, just that history tells me that businesses will exploit this.

Tefai

With global supply chains it’s so hard to figure out what comes from what country, and where the best jobs are being created.

What’s more American — a Dodge Charger engineered in the US and assembled in Canada (which government agencies buy tons of) or the BMW X5 engineered in Germany and assembled in South Carolina (which the government would never be caught dead buying).

737900ER

I understand the argument against protectionism and I agree with it on economic principles alone.

However, I’m in favor of these kind of initiatives when you consider that desired characteristics of the goods that we purchase are ensured through government forces more than market forces.

For instance, we in the US demand that our products be made without slave labor, with a minimum impact on air and water quality and if it’s food that it not be toxic. We rely on the US government to ensure that these standards are met and as a result US producers incur higher costs and that is reflected in the prices of their goods.

If you go through the trouble of imposing all of these restrictions on US producers and then in response to higher prices take your business overseas where NONE of these restrictions are guaranteed then all you have done by demanding more ethical behavior by US producers is ensure that they are run out of business.

Buying US goods makes the US voter put their money where their mouth is. If the ethical production of goods and environmental impact of those goods is really important to US consumers, they should pay the higher prices that come with those things. Otherwise the sum of their two votes (one at the ballot box and one at the cash register) is that the economic production in their own backyard is destroyed and their neighbors are the worse for it.

chalk_phallus

I get the whole protectionism thing but this is taxpayer money. Surely, you’d just want the lowest cost, highest quality product.

JohnDickCockerfeller

All the employees offered to take a pay cut so no one will get fired during covid.

AlphaBetaOmegaRed

I didn’t need to read the article to know they’re doing fine. When you treat people right they’re invested beyond compensation. They’ll go the extra mile. Chances are the good pay allowed them to be in good enough finance situations to offer the sacrifices mentioned in the article.

Mudder1310

Take Southwest Airlines as an example. Zero people laid off till date and working there for a short while I saw how nicely they treat their employees and in turn, their employees treat airline customers nicely and that’s how they built their loyal customer base.

Dwigt_Schroot

Nice try Dan Price

wolfford

Rush Limbaugh was wrong about something. What a shock

drputypfifeanddrum

I’m hearing from co-workers it a total cluster fuck. Shippers, truckers, and imports all don’t know the new rules, don’t know what paper work is required, and don’t know what data need to be on the documents or given to the broker. Add on the new VAT collection and many brokers are running into cash flow issues, paying VAT and waiting for customers to pay.

Perception_Free

Therefore start importing international goods

LostEfficiencies

Europe and the UK are a bureaucratic disaster?

I, for one, am shocked.

Random_Redditor811

I believe UK is free to cut duties and paper works for imports

Ironner2

Shocked Pikachu face

gypsysniper9

Only for one year did this happen. So did India. The US is still number one in FDI by a long shot. Misleading title but convenient for Forbes special interests.

AdeptSloth1

They are going to have a rude awakening, when they lose the CCP‘s favour or when they are forcefully nationalised like a 3M factory last year.

dankniclas

As we showed ourselves to not have our shit together. Solution: Get our shit together.

OMPOmega

Chinese bonds pay well currently (where the hell will you find 3% elswhere?) so it makes sense for a lot of funds to go there to weather this covid storm. And only about 10% of Chinese debt market is foreign owned so there’s a margin for more (us debt market is about a third foreign owned).

Not_Guardiola

LOL, people all over the world are laundering their money through US real estate. That will not change anytime soon. Nice clickbate title.

sprtn757

By definition it’s not a natural monopoly if it can’t make a profit

Kradek501

I think the internet lends itself to more agglomeration of power in fewer companies.

goodsam2

TL;DR :

“We find that the average user is indifferent, at least in the short term, to having two competitors or a single dominant platform.”

Ayup. In the end, we’d like the “electric company” model for otherwise-undifferentiable services.

ArkyBeagle

Parler just got shut down by a collusion between 4 monopolies. So yeah, they monopolize the space completely. If they don’t want you on the net, you won’t be on it.

stinkerb