Stimulus & Bailout Watch Thread

[boutons_deux]

The Post among five news organizations suing Small Business Administration for access to loan data

for access to government records showing who received more than $700 billion in taxpayer-backed small-business loans.

to ensure the public has access to information about how public funds are spent and to enforce federal freedom-of-information law.

The Post is joined as a plaintiff in the lawsuit by the

New York Times,
Wall Street Journal parent company Dow Jones,
Bloomberg LP and
the investigative news organization ProPublica.

“The Small Business Administration has disbursed hundreds of billions of dollars through [the Paycheck Protection Program] and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program during the COVID-19 crisis,

but it has refused to disclose who is receiving the funds and in what amounts,”

“Our lawsuit seeks to enforce federal law and enable the public to see how their tax dollars are being spent on these massive loan programs.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/05/12/sba-foia-lawsuit/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9. eyJjb29raWVuYW1lIjoid3BfY3J0aWQiLCJpc3MiOiJDYXJ0YS IsImNvb2tpZXZhbHVlIjoiNTk3NDBkYjNhZGU0ZTIxYTg0OTNm ZGFlIiwidGFnIjoiNWViYjA0NTRmZTFmZjY1NGMyZGIyMTcwIi widXJsIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cud2FzaGluZ3RvbnBvc3QuY29t L2J1c2luZXNzLzIwMjAvMDUvMTIvc2JhLWZvaWEtbGF3c3VpdC 8_dXRtX2NhbXBhaWduPXdwX3RvX3lvdXJ VhbHRoJnV0bV9t ZWRpdW09ZW1haWwmdXRtX3NvdXJjZT1uZXdzbGV0dGVyJndwaX NyYz1ubF90eWgmd3Btaz0xIn0.RgaDBPoVt4v_I07-b7obH1_XD-4oxk95-CGPfEl8eh8&utm_campaign=wp_to_your_health&utm_medi um=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_tyh&wpmk= 1

[boutons_deux]

Pelosi unveils $3T virus bill,

warns inaction costs more

$1 trillion for states and cities,

“hazard pay” for essential workers and

a new round of cash payments to individuals.

The Senate will wait until after Memorial Day to consider options.

nearly $1 trillion for states, cities and tribal governments to avert layoffs,

focused chiefly on $375 billion for smaller suburban and rural municipalities largely left out of earlier bills.

The bill will offer a fresh round of $1,200 direct cash aid to individuals,

increased to up to $6,000 per household, and

launches a $175 billion housing assistance fund to help pay rents and mortgages.

There is $75 billion more for virus testing.

It would continue, through January,

the $600-per-week boost to unemployment benefits.

It adds a 15% increase for food stamps,

new subsidies for laid-off workers to pay health insurance premiums under a COBRA law and

a special “Obamacare” sign-up period.

For businesses, it provides an employee retention tax credit.

There’s $200 billion in “hazard pay” for essential workers on the front lines of the crisis.

https://apnews.com/d96471ec222d17fcb6fbe9ebdd1aac91

[Trill Clinton]

idk man...this is pretty weak

[Winehole23]

idk man...this is pretty weak

Yah, the Capitol Hill lobby gets a dedicated bailout after cashing in on the PPP, but Pelosi is afraid worker bees might double dip.

[baseline bum]

idk man...this is pretty weak

her, she should have negotiated for this in the first corporate welfare bill. Now this is just all for show because she'll never get it through Grim Reaper McConnell unless it adds blanket immunity for companies forcing their wage slaves back into danger, cuts payroll taxes to starve Medicare and Social Security, and zeroes out the capital gains tax like Trump has been calling for. Yeah, no thanks. Should have negotiated for a 5 month UBI as part of the corporate bailout.

[boutons_deux]

Yah, the Capitol Hill lobby gets a dedicated bailout after cashing in on the PPP, but Pelosi is afraid worker bees might double dip.

you're uniformed as is that very incomplete tweet

another round of $1200 for everybody

$600/week for unemployed extended to 31 Dec (5 more months)

I posted AP link above

[Winehole23]

Another magnanimous crumb for the working class, hoorah!

[baseline bum]

you're uniformed as is that very incomplete tweet

another round of $1200 for everybody

$600/week for unemployed extended to 31 Dec (5 more months)

I posted AP link above

It's for show. She's not going to shame Trump into anything. Trump only cares about what the 30% thinks and the 30% will swallow any ing thing he tells them to.

[Winehole23]

Another magnanimous crumb for the working class, hoorah!

and all the Dems had to do to get that crumb was immunize business from the foreseeable social costs of putting millions of human bodies to be sacrificed on the altar of commerce.

[baseline bum]

and all the Dems had to do to get that crumb was immunize business from the foreseeable social costs of putting millions of human bodies to be sacrificed on the altar of commerce.

No, they also have to sacrifice SS and Medicare too.

[Winehole23]

No, they also have to sacrifice SS and Medicare too.

"I have a structured annuity, but I need cash now!"

[boutons_deux]

It's for show. She's not going to shame Trump into anything. Trump only cares about what the 30% thinks and the 30% will swallow any ing thing he tells them to.

it has to get past Mitch, who will probably add $100Bs for oligarchy, then Trash wants payroll taxes cut to destroy SS

Jared has something called "eagle plan", stupid again to screw people out of SS

[Winehole23]

No, they also have to sacrifice SS and Medicare too.

The coordinated pivot to austerity rhymes with the famously ill advised precedent of Herbert Hoover to tighten the belt in the teeth of an epochal financial panic.

[Winehole23]

Taxes and spending have distributional effects. You can have regressive taxes, regressive spending, and regressive bailouts even with liberal application of net fiscal spending up to an inflation constraint. And this article describes the finesse that has ins utionalized regressive bailouts: supporting wealth at the expense of incomes. And in states that are not currency issuers (and the Eurozone is run as if it wasn’t one by not allowing for EU-level fiscal spending), it is correct to say that “taxpayers” fund bailouts.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020...ssessment.html

https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspe...ive-assessment

[Winehole23]

side effect of the 2008 financial crisis was that the average taxpayer had to dig deep into her and her children’s pockets to save many financial assets. Given the uneven concentration of financial assets, this rescue mission was in fact a bailout of the rich.

[Winehole23]

highly concentrated private wealth has also grown much faster than GDP itself, amounting to 5 to 6 times yearly GDP by now.

[Winehole23]

The Average of Trees Is Not a Forest – But Likely Closer to Sawdust

Olivier Blanchard recently tweeted that “much of the progress in macro in the last 40 years came from the assumption of ergodicity” (25.04.2020). He argues that that is the reason why macroeconomic models “have a hard time dealing with the current data.” One description of an ergodic scenario is that the average outcome of a group is the same as the average outcome of an individual over time. But the almost religious belief in the usefulness of averages and aggregates is not only a problem of macroeconomics or GDP alone. In a different way, a similar problem materializes in microeconomic empirical research on inequality.

[Winehole23]

Both GDP and wealth have increased strongly in the last decades, but private wealth has grown much faster than income, as evidenced by the strong rise in wealth-to-income ratios in the last 50 years. The decisive question is: How can it be that, after just a few weeks of income losses, large parts of the population face fears of being unable to keep servicing their debt, paying their rent, or even buying food? How can it be that we have no system in place that allows people to just live on without selling their labor power if they cannot?

[boutons_deux]

Two oil and gas companies that inflated the value of their stock with expensive buybacks last year

have now received $15.5 million in federal loans intended for small businesses hit hard by the pandemic.

One firm, Amplify Energy Corporation, received a $5.5 million loan,

despite having spent over $26 million in 2019 to boost the value of its stock.

-- Grist email

[CosmicCowboy]

The coordinated pivot to austerity rhymes with the famously ill advised precedent of Herbert Hoover to tighten the belt in the teeth of an epochal financial panic.

That train has already left the station. We might as well start spending like drunken Pelosi's.

[boutons_deux]

Wave of COVID-19-related bankruptcies is the next upcoming threat to US economy

many firms now bleeding cash are in for a tough ride until the economy fully rebounds, which likely will come only after a vaccine is developed and broadly employed.

That has raised worries about a much bigger wave of bankruptcies beyond the handful of retailers that have sought to restructure

rescue measures for small businesses, large industries and workers, amounting to nearly $3 trillion.
But that infusion simply “bought time… it postponed” bankruptcies,

Kotok — who thinks it will take around five years for the US economy to fully recover — expects casualties in other sectors, including travel, leisure, real estate, energy and “more that haven’t surfaced yet,”

Federal Reserve Chief Jay Powell warned Wednesday of a potential “wave of bankruptcies” that could cause lasting harm to the world’s largest economy, and

said more fiscal support may be needed to prevent the devastation, despite the massive cost.

it was “most likely” that a major carrier would go under since the travel market is not expected to return to pre-coronavirus trends for five years.

Higher borrowing costs are just one reason analysts say it will be difficult for companies in badly-hit industries to be profitable even once the strictest COVID-19 restrictions are lifted.

Until there is a vaccine, many businesses will need to respect social distancing protocols that will be demanded by consumers even if government restrictions ease.

the issue is the cost of the “gap-financing” needed to survive over two or three years.

“What is the price that market agents want to be paid to finance the gap across the valley?”

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/wave-of-covid-19-related-bankruptcies-is-the-next-upcoming-threat-to-us-economy/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaig n=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story%29

Fauci, Wray, Powell all could be fired, who else?

[MultiTroll]

Rap Ape arrested.
'Love and Hip Hop's' Mo Fayne accused of 'greedily' using $1.5M of coronavirus loan on jewelry and a Rolls-Royce


Fayne, 37, of Dacula, Ga., was arrested Wednesday, according to a news release from the Department of Justice. Authorities said that, on April 15, Fayne applied for a loan of $2,045,800 for his Georgia corporation, Flame Trucking, through the Paycheck Protection Program intended to stabilize the cratering economy.
“Within days” of receiving money for his company, “Fayne allegedly used more than $1.5 million of the PPP loan proceeds to purchase $85,000 in jewelry, including a Rolex Presidential watch, a diamond bracelet, a 5.73 carat diamond ring for himself, and to pay $40,000 for child support,” the news release read.

I'm so surprised this happened. What a great job of dispersing the money by the Trump administration.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/love-and-hip-hop-mo-fayne-arrested-coronavirus-loan-001939051.html

[boutons_deux]

"Nearly 3 million laid-off workers applied for US unemployment benefits last week as

the viral outbreak led more companies to slash jobs even though most states have begun to let some businesses reopen under certain restrictions.

Roughly 36 million people have now filed for jobless aid in the two months since the coronavirus

first forced millions of businesses to close their doors and shrink their workforces"

-- Boston Globe email

Repugs fleeced the CARES act (no oversight, secreted beneficiaries, huge companies take SBA $Bs) to enrich their Capitalist BigDonor (no concern for the debt),

so now the Repugs say no more money for Labor (the debt is too big).

My guess is that Moscow's little Mitch will extort $100Bs more for Repug BigDonor,

in return for passing a crippled Dem $3T bill, which is voted on Friday 15 May.

[Thread]

"Nearly 3 million laid-off workers applied for US unemployment benefits last week as

the viral outbreak led more companies to slash jobs even though most states have begun to let some businesses reopen under certain restrictions.

Roughly 36 million people have now filed for jobless aid in the two months since the coronavirus

first forced millions of businesses to close their doors and shrink their workforces"

-- Boston Globe email

Repugs fleeced the CARES act (no oversight, secreted beneficiaries, huge companies take SBA $Bs) to enrich their Capitalist BigDonor (no concern for the debt),

>>>>>>>>>so now the Repugs say no more money for Labor (the debt is too big).<<<<<<<<<

My guess is that Moscow's little Mitch will extort $100Bs more for Repug BigDonor,

in return for passing a crippled Dem $3T bill, which is voted on Friday 15 May.

Yes, & if they brazen it out they'll pay for it come November, including the old man.

They can talk big all day long, but, they're gonna have sign it.

[boutons_deux]

Permanent Job Losses May Be the Pandemic’s Second Act

A new study, citing historical precedent, claims

42 percent of recent layoffs will result in permanently lost jobs.

https://capitalandmain.com/pandemic-...permanent-0512