[iMuzz]

Great read.

> “We could do something called the American Equity Fund. The American Equity Fund would be capitalized by taxing companies above a certain valuation 2.5% of their market value each year, payable in shares transferred to the fund..”

I could be in favor of something like this.

However, I’d be curious to hear Sam’s thoughts on what kind of vehicle do we use to ensure that this equity actually reaches end-users?

I can make a very strong historical case that the government is not the right vehicle for this to work. You could also just look at the most recent $1.9T stimulus bill — where only a fraction of it went out as checks to Americans in need.

[adambaybutt]

He's seems open to the idea that it is just a transfer to a citizen's brokerage account which could be a service provided by the private market.

[anchpop]

I feel like unless the words "as checks" are doing a lot of work, the implication of your last sentence is not true. A sibling comment posted a link to a wikipedia article which says:

> The bill's economic-relief provisions are overwhelmingly geared toward low-income and middle-class Americans, who will benefit from (among other provisions) the direct payments, the bill's expansion of low-income tax credits, child-care subsidies, expanded health-insurance access, extension of expanded unemployment benefits, food stamps, and rental assistance programs.

Here's [0] a more direct breakdown of there the 1.9T went. A large chunk of the money was spent on the $1400 checks, extending unemployment insurance (which come as checks/direct deposit), and the child tax credit (which really will just be realized as another check). The majority of the rest goes to state governments (who will probably redistribute some of it), K-12 schools, and "energy and commerce" which supposedly includes contact tracing efforts and vaccines. Doesn't seem like a big misallocation of resources to me.

[0]: https://files.taxfoundation.org/20210312120937/American-Resc...

[dgellow]

Slightly off topic regarding the 1.9T: Where did the rest go?

[wmf]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Rescue_Plan_Act_of_20...