Your family has a fixed amount a money, hopefully a steady income, and unfortunately many bills coming in. What your family does not have is a Treasury Department that creates money. Your family also lacks a central bank—what we call the Federal Reserve—which sets monetary policy, adjusts interest rates, and also creates money. You can't type money into your savings account—would that you could. (Be sure to watch the YouTube clip in the article, which features former Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke talking about creating money by simply typing on a keyboard. I've included a longer version of the clip below.)
When your family's economy is not doing so hot, obviously your spending needs to slow down. This principle does not apply to the government, as the government can stimulate growth—get people spending money—by pumping money into the economy.
This leads to the second link.
The second link is an article on a recent bill proposed by Representatives Tim Ryan (D-OH) and Ro Khanna (D-CA). The bill, called the Emergency Money for the People Act, calls for qualifying Americans over the age of 16 to receive $2,000 a month for the next six months. (I suspect this would slow down the protests.)
Two good things that might come out of this virus outbreak are, firstly, damaging exposure of the political and economic ideology called neoliberalism, which preaches limited government, deregulation, personal responsibility, and trust in the free market. This ideology has failed now for decades (see the year 2008).
It has translated into cutting taxes on the wealthy—which does nothing but further enrich the wealthy and does not "trickle down"—while cutting social spending and social services (to offset the reduced tax revenue). This spending and these services, on the contrary, do a lot for people and the economy. When people have money to spend, they spend that money. And their spending is your income.
What we're seeing during this pandemic is the importance of governmental involvement in our lives. It's what the government is for: to protect its citizenry and improve their lives.
So, secondly, with the further exposure of the mythology of neoliberalism—which runs straight through the center of Republican politics in this country—might come sensible legislation. The kind of legislation that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have been talking about for a long time now. It's actually the kind of legislation that most Americans support. So, naturally, Sanders and Warren are branded as radicals. Because the population is radical?
While this pandemic has been a painful period of disruption, uncertainty, and fear, it might end up moving us closer to universal basic income and health insurance for everyone.
It's clear that the federal government can move mountains when it wants to. Take the recent stimulus package: Congress waived a magic wand and $2 trillion dollars appeared. How? Because the money is there. Because the money is always there.
1. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/21/opinion/-coronavirus-stimulus-trillion.html
2. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/stimulus-check-monthly-payment-emergency-money-for-the-people-act-a9466846.html
