“On the other hand, we could try... “We took the patient off life-support to see if he could survive... The funeral will be Friday....” LOL...”
LOL...yeah, okay.
Seriously, IMO, Keynesian-style relief packages are popular with governments because they involve doing two things that governments know how to do. One is spending money. The other is extending their control. By the later, of course, I mean by maintaining redundant structures that probably needed to pass anyway, ie, loans to non-payers.
Once implemented, they tend to drain available liquidity in order to pay for them. On one hand, taxes and other measures have to be increased. On the other, more money will need to be printed and rates cut, raising inflation.
Most importantly, they generally do nothing that the market, the splendidly adaptable beast it is, wouldn’t have accomplished on its own. Here on the West Coast, the real estate market was already recovering before the so-called bailout took place. The transition to a new paradigm would have been painful, as it always is, but it was happening.
All these ‘bailout plans’ do, IMO, is put pressure on the economy with no real benefit to the consumer. All to the benefit of power elites and their constituents-at least ‘til the back breaks and we’re stuck with a real depression.
Well, one thing perhaps will follow the failure of this massive creation of credit and money to cure the problem caused by massive creation of credit, we will once and for all be able to shelve and bury Keynes and socialism. Of course, many of us will be staving as a result of this idiocy.