In an article in Politico, Joshua Zeitz discusses the question of making the stimulus work. He writes:
Sweeping in its ambition, the (CARES ACT) package endeavors to infuse hundreds of thousands of small businesses, tens of millions of individuals and families, hospitals and health care systems, as well as the nation’s largest employers, with cash and liquidity.
But passing the bill was easy. Making it work is the hard part. Massive stimulus packages don’t just need votes. They require expertise, professionalism and skill to execute, and it’s not at all clear that the Trump administration has enough of that to make this program work.
Will the money get to the right people and will they use it as intended to stave off depression? Will businesses use the money to retain employees who are unable to work? Will individuals stuck at home spend money on goods and services as intended. There is reason for doubt.
Joshua Zeitz is an American historian. He is the author of books on American political and social history He has written for The Atlantic, The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, Dissent, and American Heritage.
New NY 23rd 
Will the money get to the right people
—-Who are the right people?
and will they use it as intended to stave off depression?
—intended purchases? Xanax??
Will businesses use the money to retain employees who are unable to work?
—probably depends on the business
Will individuals stuck at home spend money on goods and services as intended.
—I am sure that they will …. If there is anything left over after the student loan payment, the car payment, child support, the rent/mortgage and groceries..
Moving on…
In my salad days, in the midst of stagflation, I was informed by a retired US Colonel that money is like manure. It doesn’t do any good sitting in a pile. He also opined that the amount of money in circulation is relatively unimportant. It is the speed with which it moves through the economy.
Speed. …. let’s see……
The botched rollout of the stimulus means that the money won’t even reach the people that need it for weeks.
—Small-business owners have reported delays in getting approved for loans without which they will close their doors, while others say they have been denied altogether by their lenders and do not understand why.
—The law’s provision to boost unemployment benefits has become tangled in dated and overwhelmed state bureaucracies, as an unprecedented avalanche of jobless Americans seeks aid.
—Officials at the Internal Revenue Service have warned that $1,200 relief checks may not reach many Americans until August or September if they haven’t already given their direct-deposit information to the government.
—Taxpayers in need of answers from the IRS amid a rapidly changing job market are encountering dysfunctional government websites and unresponsive call centers that have become understaffed as federal workers stay home.
“But passing the bill was easy. Making it work is the hard part. Massive stimulus packages don’t just need votes. They require expertise, professionalism and skill to execute, and it’s not at all clear that the Trump administration has enough of that to make this program work.”
—When has anyone in the Trump administration demonstrated ‘expertise, professionalism and skill’ ?.
’nuff said!
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Will the money get to the right people? Depends on your definition.
Axios-Ipsos Coronavirus Index:
Rich are sheltered and the poor are shafted amid virus
https://www.axios.com/axios-ipsos-coronavirus-index-rich-sheltered-poor-shafted-9e592100-b8e6-4dcd-aee0-a6516892874b.html
Oh.. one other thing of interest…
those with the most resources and the least exposure are significantly more likely to say their emotional health is taking a hit.
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The private-equity industry is pressing members of Congress and senior Trump administration officials, including President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to support policies that could help provide access to billions of dollars of stimulus funds to protect riskier investments.
The rush of behind-the-scenes jockeying by the powerful financial sector has raised the prospect that an industry often known for slashing workforces could tap into the program designed as a life raft for small businesses.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/private-equity-angles-for-piece-of-stimulus-windfall/2020/04/06/ff814bd2-745a-11ea-85cb-8670579b863d_story.html
I believe that these are not the ‘right’ people.
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BREAKING NEWS:
April 7, 2020 at 12:42 p.m. EDT
President Trump has removed the chairman of the federal panel Congress created to oversee his administration’s management of the $2 trillion stimulus package.
Another sign that Trump and his minions will get their hands on the money.
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At 7:55 AM – April 6, 2020, Trump tweeted ‘LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL’.
A very poor choice of words, repeated by U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams who said he sees a “light at the end of this tunnel” in an interview Tuesday, April 7, about the coronavirus.
There’s quite a bit of history attached to that phrase. None is good.
It was used in Vietnam in 1953 by French general Henri Navarre, who told reporters he could see France’s eventual success in its war with communist leader Ho Chi Minh’s troops “clearly, like light at the end of a tunnel.” A year later, Minh’s troops decisively defeated French forces at the battle of Dien Bien Phu and France lost control of its former colony.
In November 1967 the senior American military commander in Vietnam, General William C. Westmoreland, returned to Washington, where he proclaimed that the war was almost over and that the enemy’s hopes were bankrupt. He and other administration officials could see the “light at the end of the tunnel.” Three months later, the Tet Offensive, launched by North Vietnam and the Viet Cong, showed how wrong he was. When the war ended 7 long years later, the light at the end of the tunnel was red.
Another interesting Trump tie to Vietnam…While the US was stuck in Vietnam, military press briefings were given every day at 5 PM in Saigon’s Rex Hotel. These briefings were so full of lies and lunatic optimism that journalists began calling them the “Five o’clock Follies. Richard Pyle, Associated Press Saigon bureau chief during the war, described the briefings as, “the longest-playing tragicomedy in Southeast Asia’s theater of the absurd. “
So now under the self described war president, the one with FIVE deferments for bone spurs, we have the return of both the Five o’clock follies and the Light at the end of the tunnel.
And the coronavirus, like Vietnam, rages on, with no end in sight.
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The cure can’t be worse than the disease, DJT says, suggesting that the disease like the Vietnam war must run its course. We were told that we had to do what we were doing in Vietnam, however atrocious, because the consequences of stopping predicted by the domino theory were worse than the war. The costs, especially the cost of human misery, of an unrestrained pandemic, of efforts to contain it, of war and the consequences of peace aren’t quantified.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/07/this-pandemic-is-trumps-vietnam-he-has-earned-his-bone-spurs/
an excerpt:
In his ambivalent battle against the pandemic, President Trump has managed to repeat, in just a few months, the same mistakes that took three administrations more than a decade to make in Vietnam: ignoring experts’ warnings, running a confused war effort, spreading disinformation, silencing truth-tellers and squandering the prestige of the most powerful nation on Earth.
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In reply to the original post:
Will the stimulus go to the right people?
Big banks took “free money’ in 2008. They’re turning their backs now on small businesses, SBA official says
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/08/video-sba-official-blasts-big-banks-over-failure-quickly-distribute-loans/
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