What's so controversial here?
And again, it sounds like you're agreeing with the point that I'm making. We can disagree about when it will be a problem, but you can't just trivialize the very idea of any mitigation effort being unaffordable because "we just print the money anyway, so affordability is meaningless", as the original comment was effectively arguing.
That said, given our current economy, inflation is not a concern. If you are concerned about real resources, such as human lives, then that is basically what we're exchanging right now for hypothetical inflation prevention at some unknown point in the future. We have a very real physical threat now versus a potential economic threat in the future. How many lives are worth preventing a few fractional percentage points of inflation?
Also the economy running without restriction right now greatly inflates medical costs, and overwhelms real medical resources. We're kind of in a catch-22, as the medical system cannot keep up in areas that try to fully open the economy, and that just aggravates losses of "real resources"(human lives). The economy is hitting medical limits before inflation is anywhere near a concern.
Affordability and inflation is murky. Even how we measure inflation is iffy. Cost of living varies greatly by region. There are subsidies obfuscating the real cost of goods. Tons of money has been spent on worse things. It just seems penny pinching always comes out when it comes to social programs that help those with the least to gain, and most to lose from the situation.
Somebody dismissed the very idea of there being limitations to our ability to pay for stimulus, yes, which was why I originally entered the thread to address this excessive dismissal:
>>or assuming that our government has enough money lying around to pay everyone this much all of the time
>Federal spending doesn't come from money laying around, in the first place, it comes from money the government decides to have because it wants to spend it.
I said so at the time, and all the other times I referred back to that claim when you asked. Sorry, but I think I'm past the point of diminishing marginal returns here.
Why do you ask? I was just making (what should be) an uncontroversial point that there's a bound at all, because someone was dismissing all concerns of affordability of any program on the grounds that:
>>>Federal spending doesn't come from money laying around, in the first place, it comes from money the government decides to have because it wants to spend it.
i.e. trivializing those concerns the federal government can (in several senses) print money. So why the extreme scrutiny and demand for rigor? Is it that bad to concede this very minor point? Remember, it allows that we could have plenty of slack to cover situations like this, just that you can't totally dismiss the concern because of a complex variant of "lol money printer go brr".
>Also maybe the issue is the sad state of low-income jobs, and the lack of hazard pay continuing to encourage people to risk their lives.
I think I addressed that:
>>And, to be sure, that may be the desired outcome, that people stay away from work while receiving some income, so as to mitigate the epidemic risk, while preserving financial security. That's a fair argument to make.
But either way, we shouldn't be creating situations in a position where working more reduces your net pay.