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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: 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]