JD:  I would like to hear a smart economist explain exactly what would happen if the US government paid 100 percent of the wages of every person laid off because of the pandemic. Most of those people would spend their entire paycheck on rent, food, and other necessities, as they did before they lost their jobs. The firms they buy these things would continue to pay their suppliers, as they did before their customers lost their jobs. Their suppliers would continue to pay for materials and labor to generate the products they provided and to make payments on debt, exactly as they did before the economy went sideways. So what is the argument against this approach? Is there some unintended consequence that I’m missing?

Me:   No, there isn’t. You’ve just broken through the sound barrier on the new monetary paradigm of Gifting, specifically direct and reciprocal monetary gifting, and that is the enlightening lesson that the current (kinda) bail out legislation we’re seeing can bring us all.

Of course like every system it will require thoroughgoing thought to maximize its rationality potential good, and regulation in order to effectively control the more anti-social and irrational human and corporate elements that would try to game and de-stabilize the new paradigm, but for the potential economic, personal, sociological, psychological and philosophical benefits….its a fork in the road moment where we can choose life, liberty and human advancement, or stay on the current path toward economic collapse, resource wars, ecological collapse and god knows what else.

Congratulations!