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from the a-billion-here-a-billion-there-pretty-soon-you're-talking-about-real-money dept.
Biden signs $1.9 trillion stimulus bill, making $1,400 checks and child tax credit official:
President Joe Biden on Thursday signed the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, which includes a third stimulus check, for up to $1,400, and an expanded child tax credit. The IRS and Treasury will begin to send the new stimulus checks as soon as this weekend, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday at a press briefing.
The bill signing comes just one day after the amended bill passed in the House by a vote of 220-211. The House initially passed the bill on Feb. 26, and the Senate approved it last week, albeit with some changes.
[...] Democrats had been pushing to get the stimulus package signed into law before current unemployment benefits expire March 14. Biden was originally scheduled to sign the bill on Friday, but it got moved forward after Congress sent the final bill to the president more quickly than anticipated, Psaki said on Thursday.
The stimulus package, called the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, includes changes made by the Senate last week, such as reducing income limits for the third stimulus payment and lowering proposed weekly unemployment benefits from $400 a week to $300 a week (though they'd extend through Sept. 6 rather than the end of August). The Senate also dropped a federal minimum wage increase from the legislation, but proponents say they'll reintroduce that at a later date.
How to watch President Biden's national address tonight.
House passes $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill, sends it to Biden to sign:
[...] Here are the proposal's major pieces:
- It extends a $300 per week jobless aid supplement and programs making millions more people eligible for unemployment insurance until Sept. 6. The plan also makes an individual's first $10,200 in jobless benefits tax-free.
- The bill sends $1,400 direct payments to most Americans and their dependents. The checks start to phase out at $75,000 in income for individuals and are capped at people who make $80,000. The thresholds for joint filers are double those limits. The government will base eligibility on Americans' most recent filed tax return.
- It expands the child tax credit for one year. It will increase to $3,600 for children under 6 and to $3,000 for kids between 6 and 17.
- The plan puts about $20 billion into Covid-19 vaccine manufacturing and distribution, along with roughly $50 billion into testing and contact tracing.
- It adds $25 billion in rental and utility assistance and about $10 billion for mortgage aid.
- The plan offers $350 billion in relief to state, local and tribal governments.
- The proposal directs more than $120 billion to K-12 schools.
- It increases the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefit by 15% through September.
- The bill includes an expansion of subsidies and other provisions to help Americans afford health insurance.
- It offers nearly $30 billion in aid to restaurants.
- The legislation expands an employee retention tax credit designed to allow companies to keep workers on payroll.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 12 2021, @04:09AM (24 children)
41% of their voters like the bill. [pewresearch.org]
So the curiosity is more about why 0% of their representatives voted yes.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @05:57AM
Many Republicans Congress Critters are already trying to claim credit for all the good things that are in it. It is kind of hilarious how obvious they are, but it is more tragic given how successful it will be.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 12 2021, @06:19AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @02:22PM (20 children)
It's called demagoguery. If a bill managed to reach the president's desk that would set the tax rate on the first $80,000 of income for everybody at $0, then it'd have widespread support even among democrats - in spite of the fact that it would be harmful for the programs they support. And similarly here. It takes somebody of strong character to say they simply don't want free money because giving such is likely to damage the country. And most people, especially now a days, have the character of rodents, or monkeys as it may be.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @03:10PM (15 children)
Wake up, Republicans are only fiscally conservative when they are not in power. The spend more money the Dems anytime they are in power. The only reason they are opposing this is because the dems are in power so they must vote against whatever dems want.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by EEMac on Friday March 12 2021, @04:42PM
I wish you were wrong. Both sides play the game! When you're in power, spend spend spend. .When the other group is in power, have a cow about the deficit/budget.
Where it *really* gets interesting: observe what both sides agree to spend money on, with little or no debate.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @04:42PM (13 children)
Bill Gates is the largest owner of farmland in the United States.
Weird response to your post isn't it? The reason this is a bad idea has nothing to do with fiscal responsibility, which is more of a broad imperative. There's a very specific issue here. That money in your wallet, on your card, and in your bank account? It means nothing. It has no value, it is based on nothing. If the government genuinely sought to do so, they could give every single person a check for a million dollars tomorrow. Of course we'd completely destroy our own economy, not only from outside (as other nations realized the US dollar was basically trash) but also on the inside. The real problem would not just be the hyper-inflation that would result, but people realizing that those dollars they work their entire life to earn, that people are killed over on a daily basis, have absolutely no "real" value. It's all a matter of perception.
When you start printing large amounts of money and giving it to people, you risk ruining the shared illusion of the value of the dollar. If that illusion is ever cracked, "everybody" becomes worth approximately $0 overnight. I put "everybody" in quotes because the rich are already well aware of this. They are going to be deeply diversified into both non-US assets, and assets that have inherent value independent of economic whims, like farmland. Consequently, and as usual, only the poor and middle class would be negatively affected. The moment people decide 'You know, I think I'd rather just have the government give me some more money than go back and do a job I don't really like.' is the moment the economy for these groups is destroyed.
The rich are actively advocating for all of these policies (which stand to greatly enrich them if they work out) while simultaneously prepping for collapse, because they fully understand the risks involved in what we're doing. By contrast most people have no clue and are just thinking 'wheeee $1400 more'.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday March 13 2021, @12:49AM (2 children)
So what's your solution to this?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 13 2021, @04:41PM (1 child)
For whom? For you or for myself? Do what you've been claiming you plan on doing for years, or what I have already done. Get out of the US, detach yourself from assets dependent upon the stability of the US. Then enjoy life without a people going batshit insane, cheaper prices on everything, and in most countries even greater entrepreneurial possibilities than back home.
For the US? Even if there were a solution, it wouldn't matter. Not a thing I said is surprising or controversial to those with wealth and influence. They're happy to run these experiments because they believe even if the US collapses, that they can come out on the top of whatever that "collapse" translates to in practice. And they're probably right. If these experiments work out they win, if these experiments crash the country they win. This formula's not getting changed.
For those within the US who cannot leave? Drop the mindset that prepping is for far right or conspiracy types or whatever else. There is a reason all of the elites are prepping, that Bezos is buying up land + citizenship in New Zealand, etc.. The US collapsing is a very real possibility. What does that mean? I've no idea. But keeping your wealth in stuff with value independent of the market (home, land, physical "stuff"), and having supplies to live very comfortably for an extended period of time without access to public resources (like electricity) is very easy to do. Even if you're 99.9% sure nothing will ever happen, you don't want to be caught with your pants down in that 1 in 1000. Even just going out and buying 5kg bags of rice + beans + gallons of water + blankets + basic first aid + costs basically nothing, and gives you vastly more security than without.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday March 13 2021, @11:26PM
So we're basically thinking along the same lines, then :/ How awful, that it's come to this. I really hope Halifax is even practicable, because as much as I like Hamilton based on the research I've done, even *that* may be too close to the center of all this. Never fear, emigration plans are on track--actually slightly ahead of schedule, financially--for mid-2022. Would be earlier if I hadn't insisted on getting my mother out of NYC and settling her here in Buffalo this summer.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by linuxrocks123 on Saturday March 13 2021, @03:44AM (3 children)
One falsehood at a time:
- The dollar has intrinsic value because the US government will accept it for payment of taxes owed to it.
- The government does not "print money" when it goes into debt. Treasury bonds are sold to private investors, and the money taken from them is recirculated into the economy through government spending. Therefore, no new dollars are created this way.
- The Federal Reserve expands the money supply by purchasing Treasury bonds on the secondary market, putting new dollars into the economy when it pays the investors it bought the bonds from, and contracts the money supply by selling bonds on the secondary market, destroying dollars by taking them from the investors it sold the bonds to. It does these things with a motivation to manage inflation and unemployment, not in order to finance the government.
Stuff you said that's true:
- Bill Gates is indeed the largest individual owner of farmland in the United States, but it's less than 1% of his net worth, and I speculate that his recent purchases are more tied to his charity's recent interest in improving third-world farming techniques than because he's preparing for an apocalypse.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 13 2021, @04:26PM (2 children)
Intrinsic means value in and of itself. Who will or will not accept money has nothing to do with whether what you're trading has any actual *intrinsic* value. For instance, in prisons cigarettes are often used as a currency - even by people who do not smoke. The reason they have intrinsic value is not because people will accept them for trade, but because people want those cigarettes in and of themselves to personally utilize outside of trade or negotiation. Dollars by contrast, have no intrinsic value whatsoever. In an economic collapse you could have a pile of a trillion dollars stretching miles into the sky and the best use you might find for it is to burn it for heat/energy.
And yes, we do literally print money when we go into debt. Treasuries are considered liquid assets due to the direct convertibility to the dollar and so, for instance, banks are able to use these treasuries are part of their margin requirements for lending, identically to cash. And then *on top of that* the government also tosses out $x trillion as well. The net result is an increase in the monetary supply. You can see this rather visibly here [stlouisfed.org]. Our monetary supply is skyrocketing out of control, and at this point we're simply *hoping* nothing bad happens.
And similar for your "optimistic" view of Bill gates. Two choices:
1) Buy hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland at an ultra-premium price in a first-world country with different climate/weather/soil requirements, and numerous regulatory/contractual requirements, to try to test third-world farming techniques.
2) Buy a small to moderate amount of land in the exact area with the exact conditions and exact soil you want to learn to develop, for a minuscule fraction of the price and minimal/no regulatory burdens on top.
You don't even need occam's razor, you simply need to compare alternatives to realize your proposition is obviously incorrect.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 13 2021, @09:02PM
Such as the being the accepted tender for payment of debts to the US government. This box is checked.
(Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Monday March 15 2021, @11:53PM
As sibling poster has stated, people want to use dollars to pay debts to the government. That is their intrinsic value.
You're moving the definitional goal posts here. Your original claim was that hyperinflation would result if people realized dollars didn't have "real" value. But dollars do have "real" value to people because they can use them to pay their taxes. Attempting to quibble over the definition of "intrinsic value" distracts from the point that dollars have real enough value that people can and do use them for a purpose other than trade, which is the only value dollars need to have to negate your original claim.
By the way, any fool can see that an actual dollar bill has no industrial or consumptory value. Everyone knows they are fundamentally tokens created by society as a convenient value store. The thing you think is a secret isn't, so there's no "big lie" here. What, did you think you were the only human who ever lived who was intelligent enough to realize dollar bills were made out of paper?
I was very careful with my language. I said "no new dollars were created". Yes, fiscal policy can affect the money supply, although the Federal Reserve can use monetary policy to dampen that if it wants. But the actual number of dollars issued by the Federal Reserve, either through printed physical notes or through the electronic balance sheets at Federal Reserve Banks, does not change through this.
"Printing money" would be the Federal Reserve issuing Federal Reserve Notes to finance the purchase of first-issue Treasuries. It's prohibited by law from doing this; instead, it purchases Treasuries on the secondary market when it wants to expand the money supply.
Did you just make that up? I'm almost certain that's not true and that the reserves have to be actual cash held in a vault or electronic cash held at the nearest Federal Reserve Bank. Given the function of the reserve requirement, it really wouldn't make sense to allow anything else to be used. The reserve requirement is literally zero right now anyway, so it doesn't matter at the moment, but I really think you're wrong about this.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/reservereq.htm [federalreserve.gov]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Saturday March 13 2021, @05:44AM
"Bill Gates is the largest owner of farmland in the United States."
People have asked why.. what's he up to?
Someone pointed out that Louis Farrakhan is receiving farm subsidies because he is likewise a "farmer".
Follow the money.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 13 2021, @07:32PM (4 children)
Squandering a currency has tremendous cost which I think you adequately cover, but we have plenty of examples of hyperinflation. It doesn't completely destroy the economy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 13 2021, @08:15PM
Hahaha. Fair enough. As bizarro world reaches its climax, we become the guys running gold farming business on Chinese MMOs to sell for a few Yuan, because it ends up being more than you'd make working a real job!
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday March 13 2021, @08:34PM (2 children)
:-) The day is still young. The madness of Wall Street's Zimbabwe dollars is coming to a store near you.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 13 2021, @09:01PM (1 child)
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday March 13 2021, @09:11PM
No, it will just be stolen by the banks to be handed over to giant agricultural conglomerates.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @05:07PM (3 children)
the decadence narrative
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 13 2021, @04:46PM (2 children)
No, more like self indulgence. And it's not a narrative, it's reality. The easiest measurable metric is obesity. Nobody wants to become obese, and you don't become obese without over-indulgence, by definition. Yet we're rapidly reaching the point that the *majority* of the nation will be obese. People are losing any notion of self control, discipline, or restraint.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @02:13AM (1 child)
Not necessarily true. A significant number of obese are likely due to bacterial infection. If efficiency jumps, and nobody tells you, is it your fault when you become obese?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @01:51PM
By efficiency I assume you mean energy efficiency.
And yes, it's your fault. Anybody over the age of 30, perhaps 40 at the latest has experienced that your 'energy efficiency' changes dramatically, and what is technically in a very good way. Your body is able to produce enough energy for your day-to-day consumption with far fewer calories. Awesome survival benefit. But of course this also means that if you keep eating what you used to, you will become overweight, and gradually obese.
And it sucks. I *love* eating, and my wife is an unbelievably good cook. Yet, because my energy efficiency increased - I am forced to eat only a fraction of what I used to, to maintain a healthy weight. Maintaining a healthy weight is difficult, requires extensive discipline, and means you no longer get you enjoy food the way you used to. It sucks. But it's life. You gain the self discipline, or you turn into a disgusting blob and shave potentially decades off your lifespan for it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @02:26PM
Take a poll on what percent of the bill's funding most Americans think is going to the people. Almost nobody realizes it's less than 25%.
All your 41% demonstrates is peoples' ignorance of what they're being asked to judge.