It's funny that the PPP loan thing keeps getting included in these graphics as if it's comparable to the other bailouts.
Did you all forget that PPP stands for the "PAYMENT PROTECTION PROGRAM"??
The whole reason for those loans was that the government forcibly shutdown millions of businesses and then pumped a bunch of cash into the economy as an alternative to those businesses just having to lay everybody off, even though they weren't generating any revenue while shut down.
Predictably (I literally did predict it), there was a ton of graft and most of that money went to giant corporations that probably didn't need the money.
And frankly, I wish they hadn't done it because I think had there been no relief program at all, far more individuals would have stood up to the insanely authoritarian shutdowns a hell of a lot sooner and they'd have thrown out every governor and member of congress who advocated for them by now.
But PPP loans are incredibly dumb thing to include as an example of people getting "bailed out".
What in the hell else did you expect to happen?
The state destroyed our entire economy and this was its half-assed plan to keep people marginally employed and getting paychecks even though they weren't going to work.
And there were all sorts of terrible consequences to that.
But setting the PPP thing aside... I've spent the last 15 years telling everyone I know that giant corporate bailouts are a garbage idea, and virtually all represent a moral hazard that has proven time and time again to do exactly what critics say they'll do -- reward bad behavior, encourage future bad behavior, increase the government deficits and national debt, and set the stage for more bailouts in the future.
And look... Here we are, talking about yet another stupid bailout.
But this time, it's worse!
The government is basically bailing out banks and universities on behalf of essentially the wealthiest overall cohort in our society (a majority of debt is held by people with graduate degrees). This isn't funding restaurant workers and folks who work at mom & pop shops that got told to close their doors. It's funding people who -- as legal adults -- consciously chose to take on a tremendous amount of debt.
It's going to cost taxpayers who had absolutely nothing to do with those choices hundreds of billions of dollars as a result of the future unfunded liabilities that will have to be made up in increased taxation.
And literally nothing else has changed!
The Federal government is still handing out cash to new college students left and right. There's a new crop of 18 year olds signing on that dotted line right now.
Meanwhile, this bailout only encourages colleges to raise tuition prices even more -- most of which has gone to the growth of their administrations and on-campus "amenities", as opposed to anything to do with people's actual education.
It's insane and I don't see how it could possibly be legal for the President to do without Congress, but here we are.
