1629

You can hear the alien slithering behind him at 1:16

edit: Oh, I guess that’s a sound effect to go with the chart graphic changing =/

1631

Your’e not wrong. People will tell you you are but we’re not waiting around for a cure, not in the sense of the word people are using it.

We have several viruses that lead to lethal illnesses we don’t have cures for. We have effective treatments… but people still die. Looking for a cure is just not the right way to approach this. It creates an unrealistic expectation. We didn’t “cure” the measles, we got a vaccine. There isn’t even “a” cure for it. There are treatments, interventions, and that’s been around a long time.

1632

Oh. Wow. 😳

1633

I’m not sure our government has quite grappled with the size of the avalanche that’s barrelling towards us.

1634

They can’t possibly because the GOP plan for the checks they want to issue is means tested… which means, a whole lot of paperwork on systems that won’t be able to process them.

1635

Hopefully, they are smart enough to means test after the fact, at tax time next year. Oh, who am I kidding?

1636

Using 2018 tax returns to determine eligibility is ludicrous when millions are losing their jobs right now.

1637

Yes, any bailout for actual people is just going to have to be ‘free money for everyone’ to have any effect.

1638

Seems like the skewed wealth distribution means only a few undeserving rich would get handouts. You could always make that back when you have more time via normal taxes. If you so chose.

1639

Well the problem is that when you ask the question: “how do we determine who should be eligible for this?” the only possible response is to use 2018 tax returns. I mean the government just doesn’t know enough about anyone right now to answer the question with any more accuracy.

So we need to just not ask that question.

1640

I think the plan is to use those very returns though?

1641

That is the Republican Senate proposal. Hard to imagine it survives. Pelosi and Schumer have already called it DOA.

1642

I see. I was saying that it’s not even an issue because the rich are few in number though, and if it were, you can hit them in the post virus reconstruction act of 2022.

1643

Yeah I agree. Much cleaner and more effective to just give the money to everyone and sort it out later.

1644

I wonder if we need some kind of stimulus-specific currency that can’t be spent on assets, like houses or stocks, but only on consumption. Like foodstamps but for everything. ComsumptionCoin. ConCoin. Hmm.

1645
1646

If such a thing could ever exist that’s a smart idea. You could also give it an expiration date to be spent, to discourage the rich from just throwing it into their savings accounts.

1647

Yes, that’s what I meant. Any actual available data about your financial ‘need’ or lack of it will, for most people, be a dead letter now. Just send everyone free money and try to tax it back from high-income people. Ideally, they’d pair ‘free money for all’ with a half dozen new higher tax brackets with the top marginal rate at 90% and the whole argument of not to give free money to rich people goes away.

1648

Well, you could just give everyone food stamps. Money is fungible, though, so the money they don’t spend on food could be spent on assets. That’s true with ConsumptionCoin, too, though.

1649

Hah, a man can dream! Hard to know where we end up. On one side, you have Republicans offering a single $1k payment to most people, scaling down for some. On the other hand you have a Dem proposal in the House saying $2k a month for everyone for some amount of months (not sure, 3?).

Maybe we end up with a single $2k payment to everyone, which I guess would be a fine start. Not like they can’t revisit in 30 days if (when) shit is still hitting the fan and unemployment is at 10-15% (which might be conservative).