Another thing.
I don't want the government to send me any money.
Nor do I want it to forgive student debt in its attempt to address the economic tsunami that's on the horizon.
If the government's going to start issuing checks, I'd much rather it focus on small businesses, helping them weather this storm and come out on the other side or providing cash to hourly employees who have been let go. Or come up with creative ways of mitigating the pain broadly speaking for some of these small business. For instance, in one article I read the other day, the authors suggested the government shouldn't be writing checks to everyone. Rather, it could issue debit cards which could be used after this is over, once we come out on the other side, when we all emerge from our caves and look around to see what's left (assuming we emerge, that is)
The cards could only be used to boost the economy, focusing only on those businesses that we shut down (by government decree in the interest of slowing down the spread of the contagion). When the restaurants and the theaters and the amusement parks and the bars and the concerts and the caterers all put up their shingles again, consumers could use the cards for only for these venues. In other words, we couldn't use the cards to buy a new couch or something. This would have the effect not only of injecting cash back into economy down the road, but also would serve as a sort of guarantee to lenders (now) that money would be coming back later.
I really like that idea. I like it when people start to think rather than react.
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