Re:Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F
by nicoburns on Sunday October 25, 2020 @08:10PM
(#24891411)
They don't need jobs because we don't need those people to work. What we need them to do is stay at home.
There shouldn't need to be any debt involved. It should be as simple as printing money (the central bank can do this) and distributing it to the people who need it. Normally this would cause excessive inflation because it would be injecting extra money into the economy. But it shouldn't in this case because it's injecting money that was already there until very recently.
I see the problem as a lack of agility of the economy. The hospitality works could have another job, but those jobs can't get created fast enough. How can they get paid by other people rather than the government.
Another question is post-covid do we want to ramp up consumption again. Do we need people flying to hotels to meet up, or will Zoom do? And if Zoom will do, what of the hospitality industry (already taking a stab wound from Airbnb etc.).