
Fed “digital dollars” are part of debate over coronavirus stimulus - spking
https://www.wsj.com/articles/fed-digital-dollars-are-part-of-debate-over-coronavirus-stimulus-11585085518
======
phkahler
"As things now stand, the U.S. government lacks the infrastructure to disperse
payments widely, and given the nature of the current crisis, speedy action is
critical."

I call bullshit. Back when there was a small budget surplus, Bush sent us all
a check in the mail. That was almost 20 years ago. This stinks of pushing an
agenda.

~~~
joe_the_user
I don't know if the problem is easy.

I've moved twice since I last filed taxes. I put in a change of address but
many folks might not have.

The aim of the Bush rebate was just to inject money into the economy. It
didn't have to get to everyone but this does.

------
neonate
[https://archive.md/9f2Dp](https://archive.md/9f2Dp)

~~~
wideasleep1
Thank you for your service.

------
seibelj
We learned from the 2008 crisis that bailing out banks and industries causes
massive social strife. So now they will bail out people in addition to banks
and favored industries in order to make it less controversial. No one cares
about $100 billion to the banks when they get a $500 check.

By bypassing banks with Fed Accounts, it just makes handing out cash even
easier. They do it in other countries all the time. Saudi Arabia routinely
gives citizens thousands of dollars direct to their bank accounts to keep them
sated.

~~~
anonsubmit2671
$500 isn't going to do jack. Families need $4k per month and individuals need
$2k per month. And then giving poor people nothing is a giant slap in the
face. All this means testing is too slow. Limit it to exclude individuals who
made over $130k or $200k combined last year, but that's it. Everyone else gets
their Nixonbucks pandemic checks because the marginal propensity to consume is
going to be higher than usual with 20-30% unemployment, or people will starve,
riot and/or revolt.

~~~
orasis
It might keep some people from starving.

~~~
anonsubmit2671
It might buy a couple of rolls of toilet paper too. When rent is $1500, food
costs $450 a month for a family now that staple items in particular are scarce
and more expensive, car payments aren't going away, and rent will become due
after the 90 day pause because there will be no forgiveness. I predict bread
lines in 6 months and far more massive homelessness without a proper bailout
of small businesses and the people, rather than trillions of corporate
welfare. Trickledown Reaganomics corporate welfare will never work, only
trickle-up works.

When people don't have money to meet their non-discretionary needs and
unemployment reaches 20-30%, which is worse than the Great Depression, what
follows is deflation and depression on an unprecedented macro scale. At the
street scale, starvation and homelessness would be the impact; Venezuela, Cuba
and the UN would be flying in doctors, refugee camp materials and food to the
US.

Massive UBI directly to individuals and small businesses enough to meet basic
needs is essential, and will be spent into the economy because MPC will be
nearly 1.0. Otherwise, the US economy will contract more and for longer than
at any point in recorded history.

------
ctdonath
Bad money drives out good.

And we're already at pretty darned bad money.

------
marcrosoft
How about start by just waving all taxes for individuals for the year.

~~~
jbarciauskas
What? Who cares about taxes when you don't have cash in your pocket or food on
your table

~~~
improv32
Your entire withholding from 2019 would be returned as a tax refund, thus the
cash

~~~
jbarciauskas
That's incredibly regressive. Give money to people who will spend it.

------
sneak
This terrifies me more than just about anything they're doing. I think a lot
of people just don't see the danger in the total lack of financial/transaction
privacy that most cashless Americans live under. This threatens to extend that
even further.

If this goes through, then your options for receiving money from the
government you might well need to not starve are just two: accept a payment to
your 100% surveillance bank account, or accept a 100% surveillance "digital
cash" payment if you're unbanked.

In all cases the state will receive detailed permanent records of when, where,
and how you spent the money.

~~~
mycall
Why can't you have separate accounts, one for Fed dollars, one for checking?
One is receive-only public, the other is private.

~~~
SllX
Why can’t we just keep cash and when we issue cash, we issue _cash_ whether
that’s an envelope of bills, or a direct deposit?

~~~
warent
Agree with this. Humans/civilians are not government employees or public
entities just by being alive. I'm probably not as big of an advocate for
privacy as many of my peers, but trying to keep a public spending ledger of
individual people is crossing a line.

------
mycall
> most dollars are already electronic ... Americans still have a strong
> preference for cash.

These two statements seem to nullify each other.

~~~
davisr
Most Americans don't have most dollars.

~~~
rodonn
Agreed. Most money is digital money held by banks and businesses. Even with
paper dollars, something like 95% of the paper money supply is in $100 bills,
which the typical American only rarely uses. Most Americans are not
representative of the most common uses of the USD when you weight things by
payment volume.

~~~
viklove
Which is why measuring economic health by GDP is utterly useless. It only
measures the wellbeing of a minority of Americans -- those that have the most
money to spend.

------
harwareboot
Lets be honest. This was the first thing I though of as a use case for
blockchains ;)

------
naveen99
Brilliant. Please do it ASAP.

Edit: Not being sarcastic.

