U.S. jobless numbers surge as worsening Covid-19 pandemic hurts businesses

So in language, when we say we need something, it’s a need for a particular and often presumptive / implied outcome.

In this case the purpose of the government is to provide for the general welfare of its citizens. The value of the US dollar depends on the “full faith and credit” of the United States actually meaning something. Therefore the government does need to show a willingness and ability to pay its debts.

The perceived future rate of inflation is a major variable in determining the interest rate that the US has to pay on its debt.

Also, the US government needs to control the level of inflation in order to have a functioning economy.

Given the widely accepted theory that printing arbitrarily large sums of money over time drives inflation, there are competing forces that act in the short and long term that would dictate the right amount of money to print now, or into the future.

Since the ultimate goal is to stabilize and grow the economy, the government does in fact need to not borrow until the currency collapses, and needs to be able to keep its debt to some reasonable multiple of GDP.

Jeff Bezos has personally donated to both political parties. Don't confuse his personal dislike of Trump with some sort of undying support of the Democratic party or their tax policies.

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If Bezos's and the other mega billionaires wanted to truly change the tax code for a top .0001% tax rate or whatever they could almost certainly get it done.

How much does Bezos spend on lobbying (not Amazon specific interests)? Virtually a 25 cents to him - .000086

Adelson spent something like $500mm over a decade and he probably has 75% or more of the 'credit' for changing pro-Isreal policy.

Bezos and the rest of them could put a few billion into treasuries and still not lose any basis just use the dividends politically.

In addition if they stopped following shareholder primacy Bezos could direct Amazon to repatriate profits continually and pay the tax. Stop relying on legal 'loopholes' to lower tax % and just pay in 'best faith' and stop pitting local governments against each other in a race to the bottom.

Hell they could even send a check to Treasury but spending only a billion $ lobbying for new laws would be more effective and longer term.

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Personally I'd like to see something like a sovereign wealth fund that benefits social security/healthcare and directly supports the bottom 40%. Look to Alaska as an example.

Each 'bailout' the taxpayers should get a % of shares for their investment, basically free money from the Fed which is supposed to make its money back anyways. Fannie/Freddit/TARP is an odd example something more like UAE, Norway but passive and only US companies

Go further and make it part of taxes for the mega corps only. 14% profit + a small % of shares annually.

We don't have to turn into CCP with control over Corporate direction. Simply hold the shares passively.

Have to figure out something where corps have no dividends. Maybe a set yearly sale %.

I think about how beneficial it would be to give $1600 cash right now and match another $1600 to each individual in basically a retirement index fund that is only accessible in ___ years or ___ first time homebuyer etc circumstances like a new type of IRA. Hell the government could take a cut in ___ years and it would pay for itself.

Maybe feature X in Firefox is actually better than Chrome (just an imaginary example) but because it doesn’t exactly work like you are used too, it doesn’t appeal.

Or your peers are all in the same in-group and Software X is what a Real Programmer should be using.

That all together could mean an experience gets progressively worse yet you don’t switch.

First, both sides are mostly made up of non-violent people dedicated to their cause. Both sides can rightfully claim that a minority of "bad eggs" amongst them caused the violence.

But that's where the equivalency ends. We have to look at the cause itself.

It's quite a stretch to say that a group protesting police brutality (in the face of actual police brutality) is at all equivalent to a group seeking to overthrow a legitimate government (with zero evidence to back their claims).

It's not the same ballpark. It ain't even the same fucking sport.

The joys of being rich, you get to influence the government!

The transfer of wealth has (in my personal theory) lead to the lobbying of everybody, no matter which political affiliation - to the point where both "sides" are agreeing on policies that are harming people and favoring corporations.

I _REALLY_ do not want to get political, but the timing is just too coincidental to not be mentioned... Now that a certain person is going to be kicked out of office, several politicians of mentioned governors and mayors are finally considering re-opening their cities when only weeks ago they were handing out fines - even when there's been a lackluster start to the US vaccination campaign.

My old firm sort of moved away from the LBO model, but it's still going strong.

And while he pretends to listen, you've got politicians like AOC and Sanders fighting their backsides off for the blue collar classes, trying to get them healthcare and education.

The key government failure in the US, at least since a total failure by the white house to seize the moment early on, is republicans seizing mask-wearing as a wedge issue. Following the most simple measures such as masks would effectively solve the issue enough for vaccines to catch up. Cynical exploitation of ignorance in the people by republicans has been the true societal failure in this pandemic.