Comments

1

The US should do a lot of things (for starters they never should have allowed Trump to slither into the WH or dismantle the entire government)!!! We all know what SHOULD be done and what WILL be done are two entirely different things. I received a text from a friend today (she lives in Seattle, she's a single mom) and since they've closed Seattle schools for two weeks and she has to work she is FUCKED and has no idea what she's going to do. People should be allowed to stay home, take care of themselves and their families, not fear financial destruction or job loss, etc. IMAGINE IF THE BILLION DOLLARS SPENT ON TRUMP'S GOLFING TO DATE HAD BEEN SPENT ON PREVENTING THIS PANDEMIC.

2

Kind of like The Stranger's advertisers and event's income have suspended paying you?

Let us know how that works out.

3

what an asinine idea

4

No, at most it should just be mortgage payments applied to principal during the crisis.

6

I mean, someone is going to have to bear the burden. If you can't square the circle of income versus expenses, then propose a better way before shitting on people trying to suggest solutions, feasible or otherwise. It's a start.

I wonder how many of our street friends have been tested? Have we just completely forgotten about virus transmission from those living outside?

7

Totally reasonable solution assuming the goal is to maintain stability and minimize harm from corona. But that's not the goal. The goal is to take advantage of the shock to the system by letting the little guys (middle and lower class citizens and small businesses) absorb the hurt so that the big guys can come in and take advantage of their pain. Get ready for TARP 2.0. Banks and markets? Nothing we don't do to prop you back up. Regular people and small businesses? Go fuck yourselves.

8

Speaking of which, thanks again, Al Jazeera, for keeping me more informed about what is going on in my own country than my own fucking media.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/homeless-coronavirus-outbreak-200311121536154.html

Cant get any fares in your Uber? Get laid off from your service industry job? Got kids to feed? Tough shit! Here's an eviction notice. Nobody on the streets to give you money either, but life finds a way.

9

Every crisis is an opportunity... for Charlie to parade about in his favorite political costumes.

All these rent and mortgage payments, they're just going into somebody's great big Scrooge vault, yes? Nothing would happen if we just shut them all off for a little while. The financial system is just a big make-believe gambling game, there's nothing concrete at stake anywhere in it that real people might ever care about. Right?

The banks can't possibly be a system of redistribution, like the dumb old professors seem to think. The whole ting is just an idle pastime for bored billionaires, nothing more.

11

@9. You lived through 2008-2012. Right? Ever seen the Big Short? But no, surely investing in worker sustainability, health, and productivity through a crisis, and asking them to bail out the banks that clearly falsify their bubble profits in a bear market will be so much better for the economy. Just crunch the numbers! The numbers, Duke! The numbers, Mortimer!

12

"Regular people and small businesses? Go fuck yourselves." --@psd

No wonder they don't want the workers to own the means of production -- where's the Skim? This Capitalism is some pretty Harsh shite.

Why? Is that, just how it's Gotta BE?
Just ... Because?

13

@11 Ah yes. I can not possibly understand banking, because I have not seen a movie.

I did read the book, but in the world we live in today I suspect that counts against me.

Also their first album, "Liar's Poker," was better.

14

@13. I'm not questioning your understanding of banking; I am questioning your priorities.

15

Now I'm convinced this is a media hype TO destroy the economy on all fronts by "not letting a crisis go to waste". Seriously, we survived the Swine Flu just fine and this has the lowest mortality rate, but this was just what the left needed after the joke of DNC primaries. And here's the Stranger with a guy from Zimbabwe - a place known for megahyper-inflation - trying to give the same sort of economic advice that brings ruin.
And seriously, that whole start about Italy, implying it's a good idea but Italians are "alt-righters" so they only help the rich? We're actually seeing the flaws of globalism and open borders, as the virus easily went past checkpoints.

16

@8 Al Jazeera? Oof! Though I spose it's not much better than here. I mean anyone in Seattle would instinctively think about the homeless getting infected. I know I'll definitely sound cruel, but it'd be nice if the coronavirus actually came in as an unemotional third party and 'clean out' the homeless. Most of them are junkies. And don't mind being criminals. A whole slew of homeless have been trespassing on a construction site for the past 6 months leeching off private property's electric grid, leaving heroin needles everywhere, tagging our windows. But again this is all overhyped to declare a pandemic and hurt the economy in time for elections.

17

@ 1 - "for starters they never should have allowed Trump to slither into the WH or dismantle the entire government" - What are you talking about? He hasn't dismantled the entire government. He's only the executive branch head. then there's state governments. Bernie's the only one promising to dismantle and replace the entire government.

18

Yeah, lets just bankrupt all the small time, middle class landlords so that the huge real estate/rental companies who can weather such a storm financially to swoop in and buy everything up cheap.

That will help normal people.

19

@17. Please just shut the fuck up.

20

How many fucking 404s do we have around here, anyway?

22

Yeah, that's not gonna happen.

23

Nah, just let the rich repo all your shit. Anyhoo, I'm starting a guillotine sharpening business to position myself as a 'cool' job creator in the coming class war. Sort of like that fat guy in Dr, Zhivago, gotta stay current.

25

Good luck with this one, Cholly. I see my landlord coming around for the rent the day after a thermonuclear attack on the West Coast by North Korea.

26

@#1: Who is "They"? Last I checked, Trump was legitimately elected by a vote of the people under the rules in place at the time. We call those rules "The Constitution". Trump is indeed odious and loathsome, but he was elected by "They", which is "Us". Sad but true.

27

23 You are ahead of me. I am looking for guillotine sharpeners for the coming class war as well.

lilappozo or whatever your name is. You are quite the fascist aren’t you? Creep.

28

@25, the point is if landlord doesn't need to pay mortgage, then they can let the renters not make payments while not working.

29

@16 You don't "sound cruel". You definitely are cruel.

And I can be 100% certain based on your comment that you have never once in your entire life volunteered at a homeless shelter.

Just an uninformed, selfish asshole.

At the homeless shelter where I volunteer, 99% of the guests are kinder, nicer, more generous and grateful human beings than you, and if it came to choosing who got the lifesaving ventilator based on who I thought had more potential to contribute positively to society, I'd choose them in a heartbeat over you.

30

@17 I feel like Bernie is the only one promising what Abraham Lincoln asked the country to resolve in his Gettysburg address:

"—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

31

There are working poor who own their own homes with no mortgage, I grew up in such a home. Seattle does not represent every housing market in the US.

32

@24, yes the flu will disappear with warm weather. Why, just look at Australia. No Coronavirus there... Otherwise you're in fact making some good points. To paraphrase the movie Tropic Thunder, never go full Trump.

33

I know when people hear "landlord" they think of a rich white guy just raking in profit without doing any work, but the property management industry employs thousands of working class people in every city. With no rent revenue available all of those people would lose their income. This is one of the least thought out suggestions I've seen reported in a newspaper in quite some time.

35

@2- ha! Best slog comment in a long time.

36

So often there is offered a VERY attractive solution to a major problem that will draw focus away from the problem, AND WILL NEVER WORK.

This is just such a zombie idea.

¿A crippling run on the market?
"Just rewind the financial records clock til just before the downturn, and suspend trading 'til some Star Chamber Cabal irons out the travesty."
THAT WILL NOT WORK, EITHER.
Pretend a bit more that it will work, get a schload of peoples' hopes up for a solution, and destroy any vestige of confidence when THAT FAILS TO WORK, TOO.
Just like making mountains INTO mole hills.
I guess whoever should have edited this article got laid off.

37

Silly idea - landlords have mortgage payments, taxes, insurance, maintenance - bills that continue. Many own a few properties or just one, a small business. This would be a cascade effect that would have no end, a spiral of collapse and bail outs. Better to print money / borrow at the federal level and make up lost wages to the workers: socialism for the masses, bail out anyone who has lost earnings (incl small businesses like The Stranger). They can then pay rent and mortgage as normal, pay their employee salaries.

39

So me, as the landlord am supposed to just give everything i own away? if i don't get paid, my life is over as i know it i have no other income.. maybe ill just go get a job at mcdonalds... o wait, they have cut the current workers hours already due to only opening the drive through... but its ok! no big deal... i dont need to live.

40

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I like Mitt Romney's idea better.

41

@18. Good point.

42

Stick to being a movie critic, you are no economist and have no idea what you are talking about.


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