[macintux]

I don’t think the problem is “a month” of inactivity, although clearly there are no shortage of people and businesses who can’t survive even that.

The real problem is that we’re a month in and there’s no genuine end in sight, optimistic politicians notwithstanding. The actual end of the crisis could be two months away or two years.

[colonelanguz]

That's a fair point. It doesn't make me feel any differently about the proposition that, in a society that preaches values like rugged individualism and fiscal responsibility to its poorest members, it's strange to me that 99% of the government's per capita expenditures are going to places other than the people. Literally 99%. And by blindly subsidizing every single business, including like hedge funds and other speculators who partially caused the liquidity crisis, the government in sowing the seeds for the next meltdown and disguising insolvent firms as economically viable ones. All of which is bad for society and the economy.

[macintux]

Yeah, I've definitely been in the UBI camp for a while, and I'm hopeful that if nothing else positive comes out of this that we'll rethink how we're structured as a society in that regard.

So it's safe to say I think more of the money should be going directly to the most vulnerable, but I'm also sympathetic to the point that, at least as far as the way we've structured our economy, public companies aren't allowed to prepare for a 100% loss of business for months at a time. How much grief did Apple get for sitting on a pile of cash when it could be "better spent elsewhere"?