Where does the US get all the money for the stimulus checks?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_position_of_the_United_States

Someone who is more educated in money, please correct me if I’m wrong.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/coronavirus-stimulus-package-pay-united-states/

1.8 Trillion. That’s the current draw. It seems like a lot. Surely we must be stressing the economic system somehow??

Maybe not. For, this is the secret of modern capitalism: making money from credit and equity; that is, out of nothing.

The money our government is drawing from is equity, which is a pure speculative quantity. It is the amount of money people are willing to bet on, and these bets then contribute to the asset/deficit function called equity.

Currently the US has $128 Trillion to draw upon. This is to say, to pay off bets, which are always smaller than the equity, and which always pay off into equity more than the payouts from the bets.

To the general citizen, “invest” means to “believe’ that money is rooted ethically in humanity, in life, in work, goods and services, family, etc… Regular people bet on “things”.

But the real Money makers bet on nothing.

To the true capitalist, to invest means to bet that you will lose. For the true capitalist, humanity is merely a placeholder in the game; it does not even have a stake in it. Humanity is the “zero”, the null set against which ethics is claimed, either as “good” or as “winning”. And the thing is, humanity will never end.

This is the secret to big money: no matter how screwed up humanity and the world appears, no matter how many people die for whatever reason, the money will keep rolling in, technology will endure and the aggregate group of beings called humans will continue to grow and support a small elite who function to move the body onward to the future !

That is the attitude of investors who win. So we all win, in the end.xx

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12 responses to “Where does the US get all the money for the stimulus checks?”

  1. landzek Avatar
    landzek

    Man that auto correct on my voice dictation really sucked. I hope you can read through stupid Ai

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  2. landzek Avatar
    landzek

    Oh hey: the Expanse. Have you read or seen that scifi series? In that future the economy is so large. One has a choice whether they want to contribute or not. If no. You are given a standard living.

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  3. Hesiod Avatar
    Hesiod

    Money doesn’t exist ever since we went off the Gold Standard. Money is simply a medium for the means of exchange between supply and demand. It’s basically a big IOU with the promise that it’s worth something by the Federal Reserve, US Government, and consumer trust. Without a hard currency backing, we can print whatever we want and slap the IOU promise with. The government assures us that the non-existent money being put into our accounts is worth paying debts with, and we trust that the imaginary income we can “paid” with is valuable. So the system works.

    Our economy is based on a giant debt-rent system. This is why we don’t care about the debt anymore, print more and more money, credit everything, and privilege debt economics through mortgages, renting, leasing, loaning, credit, etc. rather than any tangible form of ownership. Do you pay a mortgage on your house? You don’t own it. Do you have a lease or payment plan for your car? You don’t own it. Do you rent? You obviously don’t own that. Do you use credit for purchases? Technically you don’t own anything you buy on credit either, the CC owns it until it receives its credit payment. The stimulus checks given out since Trump, and now under Biden, you don’t own that either. That’s why the government taxes (or credits) it back to itself.

    The commentary you have is inaccurate per economics. (I do have a degree in it!) Money doesn’t roll in at all. Money doesn’t exist. If we all agreed tomorrow that the medium for the exchange of goods and services should be in bottle caps, soda cans, or blank white paper, that would be the medium of exchange. Hence why bitcoin is popular atm. It is an alternative means of exchange for goods and services without the regulations of central banks and governments. Now, of course, the FED and governments don’t like competition. Eventually they will pass laws restricting bitcoin and regulate it. (In my opinion.) But bitcoin isn’t backed by the FED, government, or all businesses; thus it can only be selectively used by providers willing to accept bitcoin but bitcoin is a real example of free-market supply and demand. No one is compelling anyone to use bitcoin. People have decided for themselves and are doing very well, at least for now.

    All economic systems are command-control systems. It’s just a matter of to what degree of command-control is exercised between the money-backers, service and goods providers, and consumers. Consumers have little command, as consumers have to pay the retail price of goods and services. Service and goods providers also have little command, as they adjust their prices based on the policies of the money-backers. The FED and the US Treasury really holds the power because their policies impact the fluctuation and the ebb and flow of economic expectations. Everyone else is simply reacting to that.

    Money holds its value because 1) it is backed by central banks and governments; 2) consumers use it and have “faith” in its worth and value; 3) it is the normative expectation that money is used for all exchanges of goods and services between consumer and provider.

    Inflation, though, will go up this summer. Expect gas prices to surge above $4 a gallon, car prices will go up, house prices will go up, rent prices will go up, price of all goods will go up, meanwhile income will remain stagnate. Now I’m not particularly concerned about all this for myself as I make twice the standard of living in the place where I rent. So I’ll be relatively unaffected by all this. Most people won’t be as fortunate, especially in areas already crippled by lockdowns and high standards of living. Best to “save” the money you are getting from stimulus rather than spend, since spending prices will be a greater burden sometime by the summer or fall.

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    1. landzek Avatar
      landzek

      Some how, You said that my commentary is inaccurate per economics, but then your description sounds to me like I was accurate. Lol

      Yes, it doesn’t matter what we call it, but we do call it money.. That’s what we call it right now. Sure we could use any name or any item, just like bitcoin and what are those new things that are costing hundreds of thousands of dollars..

      But presently we do Collett money. And I feel like I’m kind of saying the same thing as you except I’m adding agency to it and calling a duck a duck: True capitalists are only placing bets on a fantastic system of ledgered Debt. And they can create layers of debt anywhere they want to and place bets on those fantastic imaginary arrangements as well.

      Is that so incorrect?

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      1. Hesiod Avatar
        Hesiod

        To point: 1) We have no money to draw upon because money doesn’t exist. It is an imaginary medium for the exchange of goods and services that we accept since our Federal Reserve notes and credit is backed by our central banking system with other banking systems around the world with the credit rating of the US Government.

        2) We don’t actually collect money either. We have nothing more than a blank piece of paper with IOUs written on them.

        3) Investors don’t make bets. Investment is about adding liquid capital to capital funds needed for making purchases, creation, etc., with the expectation that if the investment leads to greater purchases and creation of goods and services, that will invite more investments from other investors, thus driving the original purchase price of stock up. Original investors are rewarded with the greater risk entailed in funding the unknown; it is less risky when a company or good is already selling well to invest in it. Investments as practiced today are worthless since money doesn’t exist. The good investors “cash out” and subsequently invest in tangible goods: property, technology, hard metals (gold, silver) because such things are physical and hold real value unlike investment portfolios.

        My comments had nothing to do with “money” as a word. Money is, as I said, merely the medium of exchange for goods and services. But paper money and credit, unbacked by anything tangible, is nada, zilch, nothing. We have no amount of dollars to draw from because paper money and credit doesn’t exist like gold, silver, or copper exists.

        4) Our money comes from nowhere because it is just printed from nothing. There is no such thing as income either. We are paid with nothing more than a promise that our compensation for work is worth the purchase price of goods and services. We are essentially paid with credited IOUs and blank checks. The moment we lose faith in the promises backed by central banks and government, if we have no physical assets to our name, we are literally broke. Which is what the vast majority of Americas find themselves in though we delude ourselves with our homes and cars on mortgages and leases.

        5) You can’t place bets on debts. High debt companies are never invested in because of the likelihood of default or bankruptcy.

        6) The financial elite benefit from the debt-rent system because they actually own the real stuff: property, gold, the factories, patents on technology, etc. The more regular people own things, even as mundane as homes, cars, and small businesses, the more tangible competition there is. The default to monopolistic competition doesn’t like this competition.

        6) Wealth has no ethical bearing. The end of wealth is personal comfort. The objective standard for wealth is in tangible assets, not debt, credit, or money. This is why people who own things, rather than have “money in the bank” are the wealthiest people. You should own tangible goods if you have the ability to. Such assets owned are not in relation to others and therefore have no ethical standards tied to it. A car or a house qua themselves are not and cannot be ethical. What you do with your car or house, or the loaned or leased car or house, is your decision. You can be ethical with what you own as ethics relate to people and not goods.

        7) The problem with giving people more money is that we will harm everyone who is not in the top 1%. We will drive inflation up. Prices of goods will go up. Rent and housing will go up. Consumer goods will go up. This is an economic fact. Those with less income are obviously the most negatively effected by this. Everything affected by price fluctuation are tangible, physical, products and goods. Money isn’t that. We can’t throw money at a problem that relates to physical assets. The real solution to our economic problems isn’t money, it is goods and property. We need more property ownership in this country but you can’t socially engineer these outcomes, nor can we know what humans will do with their income. The most efficient way of hopefully having more tangible asset ownership is through economic growth, full employment, productivity gains, targeted employment policies, public infrastructure investment, reducing the trade deficit, and modest increases in the minimum wage matched against employment gains and economic growth (which is different than just increasing the min. wage carte blanche). None of which is actually part of this 1.9 billion dollar stimulus. What our government should have done was taken most of that money and put it into high tech infrastructure, targeted employment policies (especially in urban and low income areas), and lift the COVID economic restrictions. Instead, we normals got thrown a bone (the $1400) and the major creditors and corporations got a pass. But that was to be expected. Money only temporarily alleviates the issue of goods and services. Which is why, come summer, we’ll be worse off than we are now. So I’d recommend, if you receive a stimulus payment, and a handsome one at that, to NOT spend it even though that’s what the government wants. You should prepare for the price hikes coming down the road. And if you do invest, invest in health care and tech! S&P 500 Index fund.

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      2. landzek Avatar
        landzek

        Hm

        Well. I’d save it if I could but I’m taking the $1400 and paying down my credit card with it. I have small investment through stash. So far I have about a 25% yield overall. If you are giving me financial advice. 😄

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      3. Hesiod Avatar
        Hesiod

        Well that’s understandable. There’s nothing wrong about that plan. I’d avoid high spending like so many people though. All the signs of inflation and price hikes are coming!

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      4. landzek Avatar
        landzek

        …if you have some financial advice. You can email me. 👍🏾☺️

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      5. landzek Avatar
        landzek

        I disagree with the idea that we don’t have money and that we don’t use money. We absolutely use money. That’s like saying that these potatoes that I am frying up in my pan or not actually potatoes but they are really just tubers, I kind of root, and not really potatoes at all or tubers because actually they are just a complex change of carbohydrates formed in such away, and then they aren’t even that, they are really just molecules with an infinite amount of space in between them so essentially we are not even eating potatoes ever, because potatoes are really nothing but space.

        I feel like that’s the argument you’re making about how we never use money. Yes I understand what you’re saying. But absolutely if I say hey man you owe me the money. Absolutely they owe me money. Yes we could reduce things down to say oh we are not actually human beings but we are spiritual creatures of the universe, but when I say that there’s a group of human beings being massacred by machetes, for sure there is a group of human beings being massacred.

        I disagree with your type of reduction of them. Will you also say that no human beings exist because we are all creatures of God. Or will you say that there is no god because ultimately God is just the way we think about things. Or were you say that there’s actually no thoughts either because thoughts are just chemical electro chemical firings in the brain. Oh but we don’t have a brain either because, when does the reduction stop?

        When can we say that “oh, gold actually is an actual substance with value. And so if we are basing our economy of trade an exchange on a substance such as gold then there’s some legitimacy, whereas when we’re just basing it upon abstract ideas such as like bitcoin, there is no substance. I would ask you why is gold any more substantial are valuable than Snow? Scarcity? Again, when does your reductionism ever stop at something that is more than just some assertion of truth?

        I absolutely understand what you’re saying. I don’t think you really need to explain it to me again. I understand. I don’t know if you understand what I’m saying. For sure, if I’m walking my dog down the sidewalk, indeed I’m walking my dog down the sidewalk. And you know exactly what it means. And it has substance. Even though there is no actual substance to “walking“ that we could ever identify, and even though there really is no “sidewalk“ underneath my feet because it’s just in mostly empty space.

        At some point you really have to give up the ridiculousness of making these idealistic arguments. Everyone knows them and honestly I don’t think it really matters. I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t think it’s necessary to say well, there is no “money“. What is the point of saying that?

        Ultimately I would have to ask you, what project are you putting forth by arguing that there is no such thing of money or that we don’t exchange money? What agenda is implicit to that argument?

        This is why I bring in ethics. Because ultimately if you start to talk about what agenda you’re upholding, or what project you’re trying to put forth in making the argument that I don’t have $20 of money in my pocket, ultimately the question would arise as to what you see is the good of your project, and what badness or what evil could arise if your project is not true, at least so far as indeed you make an argument that you hope is true in someway.

        And I love when I get into this conversation with people and then they well move into an argument about there being no truth. to which I always miss Counter, how interesting it is that you are making an argument that you believe is true, and yet you believe that there is no ultimate truth. Why would you even be making an argument at all then?

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      6. landzek Avatar
        landzek

        …. and I know that you like the German idealists. I think they have great things to say. However, the idealism always needs to temper itself with what is actually occurring. Rather than asserting what ever happens to come to sense in the intellectual mind, so that’s impose it upon the actuality of the situation to argue a redundancy, to argue the close loop of thought to actuality in favor of the ideal, I would say that’s such an ideal is only a palled through obstinate‘s, which is to say, through the blind or of faith. And if one takes faith to its ultimate end and instead of three voting from the concert addiction which appearance at the end, actually entertain what the contradiction itself is informing about the argument, what happens when the idealism and the faith is cracked, is it self the actuality of the situation being held back by emotional insecurity.

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    2. landzek Avatar
      landzek

      My point. If I am correct, is that we have 150 trillion dollars to draw from. And Becuase it is really just an imaginary debt ledger, that well of funds for stimulus is only going to get bigger. And I’m fact. We probably could pay everyone a standing wage of $1000 /month. And we’d be ok. It’s really just the ethics of work=good=correct human, as well as the adjustments of ethical concepts of what it would mean to be human if we did that, that prevents us from doing that.
      There is no real reason why we should not give a right to food and housing ensured by the system. We have enough “money” to do it; we just don’t have the ethical bandwidth.
      Would you agree or no ?

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    3. landzek Avatar
      landzek

      …Maybe my whole concept is incorrect and there is an objective standard for wealth that we have to abide by that is not merely ethics. ?

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