Escalating Plunder

July 4, 2020 5:59 PM

"...the bailout ‘has been described as a stimulus’ but it is ‘more accurately’ for ‘stability and relief’. It is better understood, that is, as an instrument for enabling non-financial and financial businesses to continue along the path they had already been taking—to the extent indeed they wished to do so—by placing money in their hands without conditions on how they should spend it, rather than burdened by conditions designed to set them on another path." Robert Brenner, NLR
posted by blue shadows (6 comments total)

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WALCL shows the Fed has printed up $3T of new money in the March-May period, which works out to $23,000 per household.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 6:36 PM on July 4, 2020 [6 favorites]

A followup link to a Wendy Brown interview on neoliberalism and Covid-19.
posted by blue shadows at 7:16 PM on July 4, 2020 [2 favorites]

The writer is correct to call out the lack of oversight as criminal, and mostly incorrect to blame that on the Democratic Party (cite, cite).

Pelosi and leading Senate Dems pushed for oversight, and it is the White House and a Republican Congress stalling on getting those overseers in place (cite, cite).

I have my share of criticisms of neoliberalism, but this is not an issue that can be "both sides"-ed when it is the White House removing and blocking IGs and Republican legislators going along with the game.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:55 PM on July 4, 2020 [22 favorites]

The upshot has been that the Fed, merely by virtue of its promises, was responsible for putting $7.1 trillion of wealth in the hands of equity investors, at a time when the real economy would otherwise have brought about the opposite result. In roughly the same period, between 18 March 2020 and 4 June 2020, the wealth of us billionaires increased by $565 billion, reaching the level of $3.5 trillion in total, up 19 per cent in the interval. Unsurprisingly, Jeff Bezos helped lead the way, his wealth increasing by $34.6 billion, a stunning 31 per cent, while Mark Zuckerberg gained an extra $25 billion.

I'm not sure what to feel here other than a sense of dread-citement; that is, dread that billionaires have made enough money in three months to desalinate the entire ocean, but excitement that maybe one of them will have that moment when the switch flips and suddenly the utopia from Star Trek isn't actually science-fiction anymore?

My lone act of self-preservation last month was to delete the facebook so hah!--you can't have my dollar to add to your Duck McScrooge-esque swimming pool, Mark!
posted by Khazk at 11:25 PM on July 5, 2020

The upshot has been that the Fed, merely by virtue of its promises, was responsible for putting $7.1 trillion of wealth in the hands of equity investors, at a time when the real economy would otherwise have brought about the opposite result. In roughly the same period, between 18 March 2020 and 4 June 2020, the wealth of us billionaires increased by $565 billion, reaching the level of $3.5 trillion in total, up 19 per cent in the interval. Unsurprisingly, Jeff Bezos helped lead the way, his wealth increasing by $34.6 billion, a stunning 31 per cent, while Mark Zuckerberg gained an extra $25 billion.

This is kind of a weird take. The Fed didn't hand over $7.1 trillion to equity investors. The cherry picked dates are from the low point of the stock crash to today. It isn't money handed over. It is just a price change of stock based on sentiment and beliefs about the future. And that's a good thing. We thought the entire economy was going to crash again like the Great Recession and the stock market is just indicating that they think it might not this time.

And the reason we might not see a repeat is because the Fed and Congress today are providing the backstop they should have in 2009 but did not because a combination of Obama's fecklessness and Republicans' obstruction. The Fed is doing its part this time to make sure there are jobs to come back to when this is over.
posted by JackFlash at 8:15 AM on July 6, 2020

Can't wait for entitlement reform to take center stage under a Biden presidency because "the debt is out of control".
posted by msbutah at 11:51 AM on July 6, 2020 [3 favorites]