Another $500Bn is being thrown on the fire.
Not that we don't need it, our economy is on fire and our people are in peril but here we are, after being locked into our homes and out of our jobs for over a month and WHERE are the stimulus checks? Very few people have gotten their promised $1,200 so far and almost no small businesses have gotten their Paycheck loans, which were meant to allow them to pay their employees -that's what Congress is supposed to be doubling down on this morning but what is preventing 75%-80% of this money from being misdirected to big businesses as well?
Republicans had initially wanted only to replenish the small-business fund (which they looted), while Democrats wanted to also boost money for hospitals, testing, food stamps and state and local governments. Although under pressure last week from some centrist Democrats uncomfortable with delaying the small-business aid, Democratic leaders saw several of their requests met in the emerging deal.
It took two weeks for the money allocated in March to reach the banks and then it took only 3 days before the banks ran out of money and the Republicans act like that's shocking but the money is supposed to cover 2 months of salaries and rents and utilities and small businesses employ 50% of the people in this country and those people earn $6Tn a year so $500Bn a month so salaries alone for 2 months are $1,000Bn so STOP BEING SHOCKED THAT $350Bn WASN'T ENOUGH MONEY!
F'ing MATH people – look into it….
Meanwhile a lot of businesses, in good faith, hung onto their staff and kept paying their bills because the President assured them those bills would be covered and then the first round of loans was completely inadequate and now the 2nd round of loans is still inadequate and I doubt many small businesses can afford to keep paying their staff for 2 months based on empty promises – so look for lots more layoffs.
“People are feeling like they’ve lost everything,” CNBC quotes Allie Fleder, chief operating officer at SimplyWise, as saying. About 30% of those who thought the money would not be enough said they planned to look for part-time work. Another 16% said they would borrow from family or friends, 15% would sell assets, 15% would apply for unemployment insurance, 14% would withdraw money from their retirement accounts, and 10% would seek a bank loan.
The problem with the loan program, in the main, is that it favors big businesses, who have big relationships with banks and got to the front of the line for their loans of up to $10M for up to 100 employees so let's say those employees made an average of $40,000 x 2.5 months is $100,000 per employee is $10M for any company over 100 people and $300Bn is enough to cover 30,000 businesses in the US who have over 100 employees.
Unfortuntately, there are 30 MILLION small businesses in the US so there was never a chance that this program was going to actually help people. We already know Trump doesn't really care about the little guy and, as Stomy Daniels warned us – it's no surprise that Trump is inadequate here as well.
As usual, Trump's attention goes to the Top 1% and it didn't have to be that way. 80% of the employees in the US are paid through ADP, Paychex or one of the other payroll services and all the Government had to do was pick up the tab on those employees for 2 months and then set up an application process for anyone they missed and the whole thing would have been taken care of and EVERYBODY would have gotten their paychecks. THAT is what you do when you actually want to help people.
Unfortunately, the Trump Does Not CARES Act only set aside $290Bn for direct payments to workers who would be missing $500Bn in salaries each month and the rest of the money aimed at individuals was set aside for Unemployment – which the Government is obligated to pay for anyway as it's an INSURANCE PROGRAM that you paid for with money that was taken from your paycheck – that's not a "gift" from the President!
Notice that the $600Bn for Small Businesses, which includes what a normal Small Business owner would call a Big Business, with more than 100 employees, include $170Bn (28%) that is really for "large companies". Airlines are large companies too so that's really $770Bn for large to BIG businesses and $430Bn for small business but, as noted above, 30,000 of those businesses (the Top 0.1%) require ALL of that money and they are the ones that have bookkeepers and CFOs and the relationships with the banks to make sure they get that money before your banker even has a chance to look at your application.
That's why the money is already gone and this next round will be gone too. Good luck at your bank!
Right now, Larry Kudlow is on CNBC saying that the Payroll Protection Program was "such a success" that they ran out of money. How ridiculous is that? A success would have been having the right amount of money allocated in the first place to actually do what the President promised he would do. Like everything Trump does – this program benefits the Top 0.1%.
Take Airlines, for example, Airlines are getting $75Bn, which is 3.3% of the aid yet Airlines only employ 750,000 people (including freight) out of 165M or 0.0045% so they are getting almost 1,000 (ONE THOUSAND) times more aid per employee than the rest of America.
And it's the rest of America that is paying for all these bailouts. The Federal Government, last year, collected $2.9Tn from Individuals, which was 83% of the $3.5Tn the Government collected. They collected just $230Bn (6.5%) from Corporations much of which was from small coprorations (small businesses that are incorporated) as well.
So, to summarize the situation very simply, over 2/3 (66%) of the money the Administration is borrowing is going to the Big Businesses that pay just 6.5% of the taxes along with, somehow, $300Bn in additional tax breaks, which will put their forward contributions below ZERO. Of the 1/3 going to "small business" 90% of that money is being sucked up by the 30,000 (0.1%) businesses that have over 100 employees while 29,970,000 smaller businesses are as likely to get a loan as win the lottery.
“I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It’s a depression. Everybody’s out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel’s worth. Banks are going bust. Shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there’s nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there’s no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
We know things are bad – worse than bad. They’re crazy. It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is: ‘Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.’
Well, I’m not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get MAD! I don’t want you to protest. I don’t want you to riot – I don’t want you to write to your congressman, because I wouldn’t know what to tell you to write. I don’t know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you’ve got to get mad. (shouting) You’ve got to say: ‘I’m a human being, god-dammit! My life has value!’
So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell: ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore!’
I want you to get up right now. Sit up. Go to your windows. Open them and stick your head out and yell – ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not gonna take this anymore!’ Things have got to change. But first, you’ve gotta get mad!…You’ve got to say, ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore!’ Then we’ll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first, get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it:
‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore!’
Yell it out the window tonight and every night at 6pm that you don't get your stimulus check and you don't get a virus test and you aren't able to go out of your home or see your children. Yell it until the media notices and then, MAYBE then, they will finally ask the average Americans (not the idiots at the pro-Trump rallies), what we are so mad about….
