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> I am assuming you don't know a single person in the 40% that don't have $400 saved up for emergencies.

This is an oft misunderstood stat[1][2]. The actual stats from the survey show that 61% of Americans would choose to pay a surprise $400 bill in cash. The remaining people would prefer to use a credit card or other ways of paying. Only around 12% of respondents said they would actually have a hard time paying the bill.

> Ok, so they have a conflict of interest in the matter (25% of Americans have no retirement). Of those with a 401K aged 35-44 the median balance is $22k (so its pretty much a wash for them). Then on the very harsh side of things, the free market side, you risked your money by investing, if a portion of your portfolio includes stock in overvalued companies with runaway P/E ratios that didn't have cash reserves to whether the storm, you invested poorly and you should expect taxpayers to bailout your poor investments.

I think you're moving the goalposts a bit. I could just as easily say "Why should tax payers bail out your poorly chosen career? Just work from home." The point my parent was making is that $6T was allocated for relief but too much of it went to the stock market. My point is that stimulating the stock market has benefits for all. The individual checks sent out should have been bigger, but the question is "Money has been allocated for relief, should a significant amount go towards the stock market?" and the answer is definitely "yes".

If you believe the government should not "bail out" citizens when they need it, that's fine, but be consistent.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-04/the-40...

[2 (non-paywall)] https://www.illinoisreview.com/illinoisreview/2019/06/americ...




Can you speak to how propping up the stock market has benefits for all?


Well I already talked about how most Americans have money in the stock market, so there is that immediate benefit of seeing your savings increase. But there is also a line of logic that goes like this:

An economic depression is bad for everyone. Therefore avoiding an economic depression is good for everyone. Quantitative easing has been shown multiple times to alleviate / avoid massive economic downturns. Therefore QE is beneficial to all.


>Well I already talked about how most Americans have money in the stock market, so there is that immediate benefit of seeing your savings increase.

This is inaccurate. Your savings don't increase until your portfolio is liquidated. If it's liquidated at a time there is blood in the streets, you might has well have taken everything out ahead of time, paid your taxes and been done with it.

The only reason it's "good" to avoid Depressive price movements is because every single academic has demonized the creative destruction resulting from pruning overly wasteful business models. It's unthinkable that people should have all their money anywhere else but in the hands of people virtually guaranteed to not be interested in improving your local community.




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