Is the USA doomed if another stimulus package passes?

Primo Numero Uno wrote:

This is the disease of Keynesian economics. They truly believe the government can just print money without producing anything to take care of the populace and there won't be negative consequences. It's amazing this economic theory developed because this is exactly what caused the Roman empire to collapse. History has laid this course out there for us yet we ignore it.

Say you want to buy a car from me for $20. You only have the $20. You exchange your money for my goods and everyone is happy. I make another car and you want it but are out of money. Instead of going out and working to earn $20 you just print a new bill and exchange it for the car. After this happens a few times I'm going to stop and say, wait a minute this is BS. I'm working to produce an item of value and I'll your doing is writing a $$$ value on a piece of paper and claiming it has value. I'm not giving you the next car for $20. That is exactly what will happen if we continue to fund these trade deficits by printing money. We're not at the point where our money becomes worthless but others will charge $40 for something that used to cost $20. This devalues all of the money you have saved as its buying power has decreased. It will hurt our businesses as they can no longer buy what they need at the same price. To couple that with the massive unemployment we are going to see it will be a recipe for disaster. If the US's response is we'll just print money to buy our way out of the problem we'll further devalue our currency. We've been lucky that the rest of the world has valued the $ so highly to this point. But if you think they will always do this you are dead wrong. We need to start producing more and add value if we're going to get ourselves back on the course we once were on.

The reason America became the economic superpower is we made the best stuff and everyone wanted to buy our stuff and it made our country very rich. We didn't get rich by printing money so we could buy trinkets from China.

Harambe wrote:

Salvatore Stitchmo wrote:

Oh man, you just proved my point like so perfectly. Typical - "let's take a number at face value, not even bother to think about it and that tells me all I need to know". This is why the US is f%#$ed.

Tell me what exactly companies like Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Google etc need with 500 billion in "relief money" when those companies have positive balance sheets well into the hundreds of millions (some even trillions) of dollars?

Dude, do you know how much money these companies make?!

Walmart: $63.0 million

Amazon: $40.7 million

Apple: $27.3 million

Google: $17.5 million

Microsoft: $17.4 million

Facebook: $8.6 million

Netflix: $2.8 million

Per hour.... PER HOUR!

Tell me what the f$#k do they need with 500 billion dollars?! Paying wages? How many muthaf%$$ers you think work in these places? Point being, I'm pretty sure they would be just fine with exactly ZERO stimulus dollars.

When you are talking about 600 billion for the citizens of America you are talking money that is desperately needed by as many as half (and that's probably on the low side) of the 330 million that live here. The difference? These people aren't making upwards of 40 million dollars an hour my friend. Many of them currently make um, zero dollars per hour. Time to wake up.

That "relief" money isn't relief at all. It's BS money the fed is pumping into these companies to fudge even more profitability because these companies prop the entire market up. Think of it this way - if you own a business that makes a million dollars a year and someone drops a briefcase with a million dollars on your doorstep and suddenly you have "made" 2 million dollars - do you care where it came from? No - to the outside your business now looks twice as profitable. Maybe more people now want to invest in your business even though you may have actually not made as much as you could or should have for that year. This is the same principal happening right now.

Why do it? Because for some reason we look to the stock market as an indicator of economic stability and success. Because Americas top 1% need to be able to profit from reprehensible practices like these and create an even bigger wealth gap to the rest of the nation.

Lord please stop just looking at numbers you think tell a picture without bothering to look even one layer deeper. Let me also point out that even though the fed actually put aside 784 billion for individuals the current liability is only at about 310 billion (220 in checks and 90 in weekly unemployment top-ups). Now those payments have technically stopped so where is all this cash going huh?

Open your eyes my friend.

Am I supposed to be swayed by gigantic corps with 10000's employees making $$$$ per hour?

Did any of them even take stimulus money? I think most went to industries that were actually hurt by COVID -- i.e. NOT big tech. Airlines, hotels, etc.

You're just throwing big numbers at me and hoping I get as starstruck as you do.

My whole point is that another stimulus is exactly what we need. Whether it's loans to business to make payroll or direct transfers to individuals.

You've yet to provide any evidence that these relief payments are really doing what you say. Much of it is PPP money that cannot be forgiven if companies lay people off.

I'm sure there is plenty of pork in the stimulus, don't get me wrong. But what's your alternative. 10 million evictions?