Hacker News Reader

Comment by Barrin92 | Hacker News Reader

I don't even understand this rhetoric. You can't 'bailout' workers. You can send workers cash, which the government does, but you also should help businesses, because that's where people go to work in the first place.

I'm not really sure what the purpose of this antagonism is, as if protecting employment isn't in the interest of workers, or as if helping businesses and workers is mutually exclusive.

View on HN

What is a company supposed to do with the money currently? Hoarding cash is the only sensible option currently and this doesn't help the economy.

Avoid bankruptcy with the requisite layoff of employees, and / or remain open to rehire employees when people are allowed to work again.

When the workers lose their jobs, a portion of them will start new businesses, and some of them will succeed, creating the next uptrend.

That is, unless they're starving and homeless.

The absolutely worst mistake to do is to pay support to large corporations.

The potential downside and risk is that more people become permanently unemployed than entrepreneurs.

Where do you think workers spend their money?

We need to stop propping up companies incapable of weathering a rainy day.

This moral hazard madness needs to end.

So do we just keep sending them the same benefits when they can’t find work because the businesses failed?

Cross that bridge if we get to it.

In that scenario the money sent to them still gets spent locally. They’ll still need to pay rent or mortgage, buy groceries, etc etc. They’re not going to sit on it like corporations do.

Corporations reinvest it and create jobs, the better idea would be to bail out companies but ban stock buybacks. You need businesses, or else jobs won’t exists.

People last longer than corporations. The entrepreneurs on this site often create multiple corporations.

Corporations only "reinvest and create jobs" if they have now choice i.e. the only add more waiters if they have too many customers.

TED Talk: Nick Hanauer "Rich people don't create jobs" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKCvf8E7V1g

As you noted, the spend and windfall on buybacks or maybe automation.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/05/att-promised-700...

Scott Galloway on Recode's Pivot podcast made an excellent point:

Government intervention to corporations should only be loans, convertible to equity.

Galloway observes that USA taxpayers actually made money from the 2008-2009 bailouts to corporations.

I'm pretty sure I agree with this policy. I'd like to learn more.

Along with prohibitions on stock buybacks, bonuses for execs, and all the other clever ways people exfiltrate cash from corporations.

You can freeze all loans temporarily. You can freeze all rents temporarily-- and even if you disagree with it, many, myself included will simply not pay it come April 1st and we will outnumber the police. The government can exchange cash for equity, then instead of selling it back or selling it on the open market, the government can give or sell it directly to the workers over time.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com