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Comment by marvin | Hacker News Reader

The government is passing relief package of 18,000 dollars for every citizen of the USA. That's more than enough money to tide things over if it's distributed well, in a way that incentivizes the right things.

Unforunately, a very small portion of that money will go to individuals who have lost their jobs, and a very large portion will go to companies that were run on razor-thin balance sheets, ready to topple at the first sign of trouble. No incentives to run things properly the next time around, and limited help for regular people. While costing everyone a fortune in the form of inflation the next few years.

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I’ve heard this point made a lot, that these “bailouts” are in any way equivalent to previous bailouts based on poor management and immoral business practices.

These aren’t the same. This shutdown (however justified) is because of the govt. If the government demands you shut down your business, or that you can’t go to work, you deserve to be compensated for that. If the government hadn’t mandated it, young people would still be out working and spending. Those businesses would be fine. If the govt wants to shut everything down, they have to pay people for it.

The other thing is that half of the cost is in the form of low interest loans and loan guarantees, and presumably most of those will not default if this doesn’t go on too long and thus won’t actually be real costs

The alternative seems to be to let millions get sick en masse, potentially leading to similar shutdowns for longer time periods (i.e. failing to "flatten the curve"). I don't think you can claim those businesses would be fine unless you define a timeline to go with your assertion; say, "those businesses would be fine for n weeks."

Remember that sick != dead, unless you have risk factors, 60+ or is immunocompromised in which case you should do everything you can to stay at home and practice distancing.

Businesses (including many of those demanding bailouts) have spent unprecedented amounts of money on stock buybacks in the last decade. If citizens are expected to have a reserve fund to handle unexpected crises, so should businesses.

If those companies go under they take a lot of jobs with them. It seems more efficient to prop them up instead of making direct payments to the employees who would have lots their jobs.

Especially since a lot of the companies are only asking for loans, not handouts.

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