Solidarity is key

"El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First!" (lightningzone) 03/22/2020 at 17:51 • Filed to: None

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To recover from the current crisis, we’ll need to think about the bigger picture and to think about other people too. And right now, I’m talking about banks. Banks need to remember the past and specifically the last financial crisis. Banks need to realize that their whole business model is based on lending money to people and those people being able to pay back those loans. However, on a lockdown, people and businesses may not be able to pay back the loans they took or the credit card debt they accumulated when times were good.

In some countries in Europe, banks are postponing loan payments and credit cards debts due to the coronavirus, for a few months. Needless to say that this is rather helpful for people and businesses. Why would banks do that? Not only to help people, but to help themselves too. If they don’t, many people and businesses won’t be able to pay their debts and could go bankrupt. If they go bankrupt, banks will end up with loads of bad loan portfolios and ding ding ding! just like 12 years ago, they will run to the Government to bail them out. But bail out money may not be available due to healthcare costs , and this time around the whole banking system may go to shit.

So banks(and other c orporations) let’s forget about greed being good for a few months and let’s save the world.

DC3 LS, Fuck Hyundai, now and forever > El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First! 03/22/2020 at 18:23

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Nah, time to commence 1776 again.

ranwhenparked > El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First! 03/22/2020 at 18:27

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That works, as long as banks and other businesses have enough cash to pay for their own operations and staff, and as long as they aren’t being it by a run of people trying to all withdraw cash. Plus the wave of people already rushing to refinance mortgages and HELOC’s.

This is related to the idea of postponing rent - great, but, what if the landlord has a mortgage on the building that gets paid out of rental income? What if the landlord’s spouse was just unemployed and the rental income is what they have now for food? A lot of landlords aren’t billionaires, a lot of them are ordinary people that bought a unit or two in their town. And it's one thing to mandate paid sick leave, but if companies are shut down with no revenue, where's the money coming from?

El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First! > ranwhenparked 03/22/2020 at 18:48

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Banks have credit lines with the Fed and the World Bank, I believe. Also, companies should’ve had cash reserves for emergencies, especially the big ones. But apparently they don’t. United said that they will fire a lot of people if they don’t get “sufficient government support” by the end of March . Well, like many big corporations, United did a stock buyback of 3 billion dollars last year. Could’ve used 2 billion and keep 1 for emergencies, I guess. But no.

And paid sick leave money could partially c ome from Uncle Sam. We bailed automakers, banks, various companies, we’ll probably bail out Boeing, soon. We could bail citizens too.

DipodomysDeserti > El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First! 03/22/2020 at 18:51

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Talked with a Chase employee last week while waiting for food. Don’t worry, we kept a distance. Said even though she could work from home, they were making her come into the branch every day. This was after they closed all our schools, and she had kids.

They know better than anyone that our ecomomic system is a fraud. They’re banking on a bailout. They’ll always be more money for  them. There’s an extra 1.5 trillion floating around the economy right now. That would have helped a lot of small business.

ranwhenparked > El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First! 03/22/2020 at 18:55

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“Emergencies" doesn't usually mean "complete and total shutdown for two years straight" . Emergency funds are usually to get through rough economic times, but assuming some level of economic activity continuing. A total shutdown is unprecedented, even in past pandemics like the Hong Kong Flu or the Spanish Flu, we didnt have to go that extreme. Delta, for instance, is burning $50 million a day with effectively nothing coming in. That can't continue for very long.