Covid Relief Spending

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BLADEMDA

BLADEMDA

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www.cnn.com

Congress has already approved $4 trillion in Covid relief. Here's what's happened to it

Congress has authorized nearly $4 trillion in spending over the past year to help address the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, but only about $3 trillion of it has been spent.
www.cnn.com www.cnn.com

The total for Covid relief will be $6 trillion after Biden signs his proposed bill into law next week. 6 trillion. Let that number sink in and realize there is no going back from here. I think the debt to GDP ratio has reached a point where the devaluation of the US dollar is all but inevitable.

I stopped buying Gold several years ago. I will now begin purchasing assets to hedge against massive inflation and dollar devaluation.
The corruption is Congress is simply jaw-dropping these days.

www.cnbc.com

Senate passes $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill, House Democrats plan final approval Tuesday

The Senate's $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package heads to the House, which hopes to pass it and send it to President Biden next week.
www.cnbc.com www.cnbc.com
 
Here is what Obama spent:

1615066104837.png
 
As I’ve asked in a post before, I just want to know a scenario where we don’t see the seemingly obvious and inevitable devaluation of the dollar. How do dems address this (even if their answer is a bunch of crud)? What are the pro-relief economists saying regarding this massive spending?
 
Lecithin5 said:
As I’ve asked in a post before, I just want to know a scenario where we don’t see the seemingly obvious and inevitable devaluation of the dollar. How do dems address this (even if their answer is a bunch of crud)? What are the pro-relief economists saying regarding this massive spending?
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Biden and the Dems are just getting started with their Trillions in spending. I expect at least another 2 Trillion in additional spending this year on other things like infrastructure, student loan debt relief, etc. The party is just getting started.

I can't see how this massive spending doesn't devalue the US currency. The spending is out of control and ultimately through inflation the dollar's value will fall significantly from here. No nation can print or borrow its way to prosperity.
 

COVID Money Tracker

See how much COVID relief has been spent and where the money has gone with the #COVIDMoneyTracker tool.
www.covidmoneytracker.org www.covidmoneytracker.org

The graph doesn't include the new Biden stimulus plan of $1.9 trillion which will be signed into law next week.
 
BLADEMDA said:

COVID Money Tracker

See how much COVID relief has been spent and where the money has gone with the #COVIDMoneyTracker tool.
www.covidmoneytracker.org www.covidmoneytracker.org

The graph doesn't include the new Biden stimulus plan of $1.9 trillion which will be signed into law next week.
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How much did Trumps tax cut for the rich cost again? Just asking.
 
On February 5 former US Treasury Secretary and National Economic Council Chair Larry Summers published an opinion piece suggesting the Biden administration’s US$1.9 trillion bill might be “too big”.

MIT economics professor and former International Monetary Fund chief economist Olivier Blanchard backed Summers on twitter, saying

I am known as a dove [one who supports low interest rates and generous government assistance] I believe that the absolute priority is to protect people and firms affected by COVID. Still, I agree with Summers. The $1.9 trillion program could overheat the economy so badly as to be counterproductive. Protection can be achieved with less.
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Blockit said:
How much did Trumps tax cut for the rich cost again? Just asking.
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This spending is at a whole new level. Think of it as the Trump Tax cuts on speed x 3. The fiscally responsible answer is not to spend more money than the country needs or can afford. The numbers speak for themselves as the total relief package is 6 trillion dollars!
 
Arch Guillotti said:
The spending is ridiculous.

We should be giving this money to corporations and billionaires with tax breaks.
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You and your children will pay the cost for this reckless spending. Tax policy can be reversed but 6 trillion over 24 months (on top of our annual deficits) is simply absurd.
 
BLADEMDA said:
This spending is at a whole new level. Think of it as the Trump Tax cuts on speed x 3. The fiscally responsible answer is not to spend more money than the country needs or can afford. The numbers speak for themselves as the total relief package is 6 trillion dollars!
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I agree with you. All of the rest of us have to worry about our debts and what excessive debt could do to us financially. I’m not sure why the government can get away with continually ignoring the problem.
However, I think it’s a bit disingenuous to just talk about Biden when “the party of fiscal responsibility“ spent four years falling to their knees and shoving through whatever their orange master demanded. Debt is bad, profound hypocrisy is worse.
 
I think I read we could have given $20,000 to every unemployed and homeless person in American for around 300 billion dollars. Let that sink in. $20,000 for every person who truly is in desperate need of help. Instead, we spent 6 trillion.
 
BLADEMDA said:
You and your children will pay the cost for this reckless spending. Tax policy can be reversed but 6 trillion over 24 months (on top of our annual deficits) is simply absurd.
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Blade. Take it easy. I don’t necessarily disagree with your premise but your savior trump was just as bad or worse than sleepy joe in terms of fiscal responsibility.
 
Blockit said:
I agree with you. All of the rest of us have to worry about our debts and what excessive debt could do to us financially. I’m not sure why the government can get away with continually ignoring the problem.
However, I think it’s a bit disingenuous to just talk about Biden when “the party of fiscal responsibility“ spent four years falling to their knees and shoving through whatever their orange master demanded. Debt is bad, profound hypocrisy is worse.
Click to expand...
The point of this thread is that we spent 4 trillion already on Covid relief. Another 400-600 billion would have been way more than what is needed in 2021. The rest of the money could have been used to rebuild America (tunnels, bridges, dams, electrical grid, highways).

Neither party is "fiscally responsible" any longer. The poor and middle class will truly suffer the most by a devalued dollar.
 

Inflation Calculator - Save Enough to Account for Inflation

www.buyupside.com

Many of you are used to living in a low inflation environment. Please click on the link and see what your Dollar will be worth over 5 or 10 years with an annual inflation of 5-6%. This is the likely outcome of printing and borrowing so much money by the US government.

WallStreet professionals are predicting inflation around 3% as a result of all the stimulus. Like many other things they could be wrong and the actual number may be in the 5% range.
 
Also, global demand for dollar-denominated assets helps keep interest rates low on things like Treasury bonds despite a U.S. federal budget deficit of more than $1 trillion a year. That dynamic encourages governments, businesses and households to take on ever-growing amounts of debt, which might be difficult to pay back if borrowing costs suddenly jumped.
Thus far the dollar has defied decades of predictions that its demise might be at hand.
“It’s like the shepherd crying wolf,” said Martin Baily, a senior fellow in economic studies at Brookings Institution who served during the late 1990s as chairman of President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers. “Unfortunately, sometimes the wolf does come.”
 

Purchasing Power Calculator - See How Inflation Erodes Your Purchasing Power

www.buyupside.com

Let's say an Anesthesiologist started working towards retirement in the year 2000. The plan would be to save up $5 million (based on the value of the US dollar in 2000) over 20 years. How much would that person need to have in 2020 to keep the same purchasing power as the US dollar in the year 2000?

Answer: $7.5 million

So, this means you need to plan on the purchasing power of your dollar in 20 or 30 years to be worth 50-100% less than it is today. So, 5 million in 2021 may mean $10 million in the year 2041 in terms of purchasing power.

I am very pessimistic about the purchasing power of the US dollar over the next 2 decades.
 
Blockit said:
So tell me what your favorite hedge is against inflation.
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www.businessinsider.com

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Learn how to start investing in the stock market, from opening a brokerage account to choosing stocks, and managing your portfolio.
www.businessinsider.com www.businessinsider.com

I like solid dividend paying growth stocks and US multinationals. Besides Equities investing in materials and industrials are good as well. Gold, precious metals are only good investments with very high inflation. I hope that doesn't occur and the inflation rate stays below 4.5%.
 
Call me naive, but when I look at this spending, all I see is money that will circulate back into the economy. Those $1400 checks will buy groceries and car tires. The infrastructure projects will employee thousands and thousands of people (who work for private sector contractors, by the way). Aid to restaurants and small business will help them stay open and employee people (people who, with their paychecks will buy things from corporations). The rich like to talk about “trickle-down,” but I suspect mostly when the rich get their frequent hand-outs, the money goes into the stock market. That certainly helps other people who are also well off enough to have money in the market, but it doesn’t circulate through the economy the way this kind of aid to the neediest will. You can put up all the charts you want, but at the end of the day, both parties drive up the debt horrifically, it’s just that the dems do it to improve the safety net and the GOP does it by giving rich people more money and buying bombs.
 
Where was this hand wringing when Trump signed that 2+ trillion dollar cares act? Or when he was demanding that congress hand out $2000 to americans? I think we are spending a very huge amount of money but I'm pretty comfortable. When I think about all the businesses that have shut down lately and the families that are struggling I can't help but feel empathy. I am glad that the government is attempting to help people even if the bill is full of pork and graft.
 
cchoukal said:
Call me naive, but when I look at this spending, all I see is money that will circulate back into the economy. Those $1400 checks will buy groceries and car tires. The infrastructure projects will employee thousands and thousands of people (who work for private sector contractors, by the way). Aid to restaurants and small business will help them stay open and employee people (people who, with their paychecks will buy things from corporations). The rich like to talk about “trickle-down,” but I suspect mostly when the rich get their frequent hand-outs, the money goes into the stock market. That certainly helps other people who are also well off enough to have money in the market, but it doesn’t circulate through the economy the way this kind of aid to the neediest will. You can put up all the charts you want, but at the end of the day, both parties drive up the debt horrifically, it’s just that the dems do it to improve the safety net and the GOP does it by giving rich people more money and buying bombs.
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Maybe the US will start looking into rrbalancing their priorities, for instance, is there really a need to spend so much money on defense projects when it is a decade ahead of the competition?
 
I remember when asa was at san francisco and everyone was shocked at what a dump it has become. It has gotten exponentially worse since then throughout California. The tent cities just grow and grow with amazing amounts of garbage everywhere. Granted, that has to do a lot with a legal ruling and not exclusively attributable to coronavirus but if we can help some people stay out of poverty, I am all for it.
 
As far as devaluing the dollar goes, I don't think anyone can say that is definitely going to happen. None of us have lived during a pandemic to this scale. According to my research a few weeks ago the proportion that the US has spent on aid/relief packages is small compared to many other rich countries. So if the dollar is going to be devalued, then so is the euro, the pound, etc. Right now the whole world is pretty much screwed economically. Also, we might not be in this same position with the need to spend so much if things were handled differently the past year.
 
Screenshot_20210306-200815_Chrome.jpg


The dollar index is trading at the same level it was at in 1989.

If the thesis is that our debt is a horrific emergency and that inflation has been/will be crushing us worse than anyone else, relatively speaking, where's the empiric evidence?
 
vector2 said:
The dollar index is trading at the same level it was at in 1989.

If the thesis is that our debt is a horrific emergency and that inflation has been/will be crushing us worse than anyone else, relatively speaking, where's the empiric evidence?
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everyone is aware of the data. The market has incorporated it into current prices. That said,
I find the money printing and world wide massive debt concerning as well.
 
@Endee
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Again, this is why I said "relatively speaking." If everyone else has a fiat system and everyone else is debasing their currency, then dollar strength and purchasing power parity will remain relatively stable, as evidenced by the fact that the dollar index has maintained a narrow range for the last 30 years. Ultimately, the fear mongering that the US is going to turn into Zimbabwe inflation-wise or something like that is just absurd.
 
We do need to reign in the deficit at some point. Preferably when we've returned to full employment and the the economic recovery is underway in earnest. The problem is that you can't trust Republican administrations to do the responsible thing when the economy is improving.




www.politifact.com

How the past five presidents affected the deficit

This article was updated Aug. 2 to include a graph with the annual federal deficit in constant dollars. A viral post por
www.politifact.com www.politifact.com
 
vector2 said:
We do need to reign in the deficit at some point. Preferably when we've returned to full employment and the the economic recovery is underway in earnest. The problem is that you can't trust Republican administrations to do the responsible thing when the economy is improving.




www.politifact.com

How the past five presidents affected the deficit

This article was updated Aug. 2 to include a graph with the annual federal deficit in constant dollars. A viral post por
www.politifact.com www.politifact.com
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Exactly. If I could like this 1 million times I would. These are the facts of the situation.
 
Blockit said:
Exactly. If I could like this 1 million times I would. These are the facts of the situation.
Click to expand...

Yeah.
It’s really bizarre that trump had control of the senate, worsened the deficit, people still voted for him a 2nd time and now are complaining during a pandemic about spending and the deficit. Make it make sense!
 
AMEHigh said:
Yeah.
It’s really bizarre that trump had control of the senate, worsened the deficit, people still voted for him a 2nd time and now are complaining during a pandemic about spending and the deficit. Make it make sense!
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It isn't bizarre though since this is the level of self-deception you would have to have in order to think a bloated egomaniac millionaire trust snob from NYC who hasn't spent a single day of his life working for a wage could have some sort of personal understanding and empathy for you, the simple rural (coal miner/mechanic/plumber/lineman etc)
 
Have any of you looked into what the 1.9 trillion relief package is being spent on? It's not like the poor, unemployed, homeless are getting that much money. There is a lot of pork in that 1.9 trillion.

What about the 6 trillion in total dollars allocated to covid relief? What nation in the history of the world has spent that much money to deal with a limited viral pandemic? At no point in world history has any nation spent what we have the past 2 years.

I was against these pork filled packages when Trump was proposing them as well. They are irresponsible use of tax dollars paid for by the children of today and tomorrow.

If and only if 1.9 trillion had to be spent by Biden then the money should have gone to the poor, unemployed and homeless with the rest used to fix our decaying infrastructure.
 
Pearlstein points out that the money Biden is proposing for schools and state and local governments alone is “more than the annual discretionary spending of the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, Labor and Transportation combined.” Is that really necessary?

All of this is about getting the economy moving again. But the way to revive the economy is to stop the pandemic. So speed up the testing and especially the vaccinations. Spend prudently on relief, with due attention to the cautions raised by Summers, Pearlstein, and others


www.cato.org

How Is Biden's Covid Relief Bill like the Patriot Act?

President Biden is being warned not to overreach with his Covid relief plan, which is far bigger than necessary, with extraneous measures that should be considered separately.
www.cato.org www.cato.org
 
I like to keep everything simple and the law of economics always eventually wins out. There is just no way to game it and may socialistic and communistic societies have repeatedly tried and failed.

Bottom line is economically, you can not "create jobs" or "create wealth" by just giving it away.

The piper will be paid, inflation will happen.

No time in history have we had such a big downward market driver (Covid) of GDP but the market still goes up. We should have had a large correction with the lower GDP and higher unemployment rate.

So why is the market keep going up? Because the government has injected trillions of dollars into the economy and people continue to use this money to buy stocks. Bottom line. I know of many well to do families getting stimulus money.

Unless the government continue to inject regular trillions into the economy, it will eventually tank. - You can not "game" the laws of economics.

When the government stops injecting trillions into the economy, then you will see a market crash when people will be pulling $$$ out of to fund inflationary expenditure.
 
emergentmd said:
I like to keep everything simple and the law of economics always eventually wins out. There is just no way to game it and may socialistic and communistic societies have repeatedly tried and failed.

Bottom line is economically, you can not "create jobs" or "create wealth" by just giving it away.

The piper will be paid, inflation will happen.

No time in history have we had such a big downward market driver (Covid) of GDP but the market still goes up. We should have had a large correction with the lower GDP and higher unemployment rate.

So why is the market keep going up? Because the government has injected trillions of dollars into the economy and people continue to use this money to buy stocks. Bottom line. I know of many well to do families getting stimulus money.

Unless the government continue to inject regular trillions into the economy, it will eventually tank. - You can not "game" the laws of economics.

When the government stops injecting trillions into the economy, then you will see a market crash when people will be pulling $$$ out of to fund inflationary expenditure.
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Is this really the whole story on the stock market? I would think it’s much more complex than this. The federal reserve has made it virtually effortless to get cheap money. They have bent over backwards to accommodate the market.
Foreign investors have understood that the US stock market is the only thing that continues to go up, thereby perpetuating the issue by investing heavily.
I agree that there is a massive crash coming, but who can predict when the government will take their foot off the gas?
 
Blockit said:
Exactly. If I could like this 1 million times I would. These are the facts of the situation.
Click to expand...
The facts? Here are some facts of the pork inside that 1.9 trillion bill:

www.foxbusiness.com

Democrats' COVID relief by-the-numbers breakdown is jaw-dropping

The Senate narrowly passed its $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill and Republicans are blasting the package for its hundreds of billions that aren’t related to Covid relief.
www.foxbusiness.com www.foxbusiness.com


video.foxbusiness.com

Coronavirus relief bill will pay federal workers to stay home, care for family | Fox Business Video

Hillary Vaughn on coronavirus relief bill, federal workers
video.foxbusiness.com video.foxbusiness.com
 
Can any of you ever recall anytime in US history where this much money was spent over 24 months? WW2? I think many of you have gone "numb" to the sheer amount of money being wasted by our government. The amount of money being allocated to "relief spending" is about 10 X more than Obama spent in 2008 after the housing crisis.

No nation can spend this much money and remain solvent. This is a huge gamble to the value of our currency going forward.
 
Once most peeps realize that both parties work together so that we work for and serve the government (instead of the other way around), you'll look at ways to take your financial future in your own hands and destiny. I see inflation running hotter than now, and people looking at vehicles to store their energy. Blade mentioned gold. I've been accumulating silver, and will be acquiring gold as well. There are a couple other vehicles that I have that can't be debased by the Central Bank and government 😎
 
BLADEMDA said:
Can any of you ever recall anytime in US history where this much money was spent over 24 months?
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F-35 fighter jet. Over a 1.5 trillion dollars wasted, nothing to show for it except Raytheon and Lockheed Martin's stock price.

Quit your bull****. You have an agenda, which is to get the GQP back into power because it was good for your bottom line. How sad it must be to sell your soul over 15-20,000 dollars. At least senators don't work the shaft and balls for under 6 figures.
 
Blockit said:
Is this really the whole story on the stock market? I would think it’s much more complex than this. The federal reserve has made it virtually effortless to get cheap money. They have bent over backwards to accommodate the market.
Foreign investors have understood that the US stock market is the only thing that continues to go up, thereby perpetuating the issue by investing heavily.
I agree that there is a massive crash coming, but who can predict when the government will take their foot off the gas?
Click to expand...
The market and company valuations are built on being productive and increasing profits. So many of these companies PE ratios have sky rocketed b/c they have been less profitable but prices keep going up. All artificially by dumping trillions into the economy. I will say this again, you can not go against the law of economics and when you do, the pain will just be that much worse when its time to pay.

No one knows when the price will be paid and when the fed keeps pumping trillions into the economy. Look at Venezuela and devaluation of their currency when dumb economist think injecting $$$$ will make everyone rich. Paper rich by not rich.

Price will be paid and I am protecting myself with continuing to buy real estate. People have to live somewhere.

I tell this to anyone who cares to ask, rich or poor. You are the only person who can make a difference in your life. The government can not help you in the long term, short term maybe. Our world/economy has finite resources, finite winners and losers, and advantages goes to the winners. Only you can put yourself in the winners side and you are the only one who has control of this.

The rich has figured this out and used it to their advantage. The poor have not or too lazy to work at it and continue to put their hands out begging for the next hand out and become destitute relying on the government.
 
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