You know how we keep hearing that our economy is hurtling toward disaster? We're already seeing many restaurants and smaller businesses close because of reduced patronage on account of Covid-19 restrictions and precautions. I certainly haven't been to a restaurant—for takeout or otherwise—since this all started and have no plans of doing so in the foreseeable future.
At my daughter's college, because all students left campus in March, the school let go of its janitorial and food service staffers; so those people are out of work. Another daughter, a musician, has been unable to perform for the past five months because venues are simply closed. Right now, performing artists of all stripes are pretty much out of luck—and out of work. And temporary employees, such as office temps and substitute teachers, have taken a big financial hit.
It seems a reasonable prediction that, with many people's earning power reduced or seriously crushed, consumer spending of all sorts will be down, with a concurrent depressive effect on our economy. (It's disheartening to think that we need to consume, consume, consume for people to have work in our society, but this pandemic has really laid that unfortunate truth bare. What would an economy that emphasized—rather than consumer goods--the offering of services that actually improved health, safety, wellness look like?)
For a lot of people wondering how generous (or ungenerous) the next round of unemployment stimulus payments will be and how long those payments will last, authentic worries about how to make ends meet must be feeling weighty and scary.
Wouldn't it be nice—nice is the wrong word—Wouldn't it be right, just, and poetic for the banks to take a small hit here on behalf of the American people? After all, it was the tax dollars we paid into government coffers because of our years of work and toil that made possible the $700 billion bank bailout in 2008. Banks, it was argued then, were too big to fail, thus the rescue package.
I never agreed with that analysis. I think if an entity like a bank is too big, and thus fails, other somethings, smaller and more nimble, and perhaps less prone to "failure," will rise up. Isn't that one of the foundational principles of capitalism? If an idea, project, undertaking is worthwhile, it will succeed; if not, it will fail. In the case of the financial collapse, of course, failure wasn't an indicator of how worthwhile these banks were, but rather how corrupt, rapacious, and vampirish their practices had been.
So, Banks: We bailed you out, despite your many and vile transgressions. Now it's your turn. You can bail us out by offering principal forgiveness on mortgages. This could be designed to literally buoy all boats, so that renters as well as homeowners will benefit. Principal forgiveness reduces the principal owed on a mortgage, and can be structured so that monthly payments are reduced too.
That reduction in monthly payments clearly has the potential to help homeowners directly by shrinking their monthly nut. But principal forgiveness for small landlords—and we'd need to define that in terms of number of rentals owned so that we don't benefit huge landowners who don't need the relief—principal forgiveness on mortgages held on rental properties would need to be structured to also benefit the renters who occupy those properties through monthly rent reduction.
This is simple reciprocity. We helped the banks—even though we didn't have a say in that decision—and now we need help. It seems to me a very basic protection against contracting Covid-19 is having a home—a place where you don't have to worry about social distancing; a place where you can disinfect groceries and sundries when you bring them home; a place to easefully wash your hands and shower and keep clean in the ways that minimize viral transmission.
In California right now, our situation is complicated by the early start of wildfire season. Outdoor air is currently unsafe to breathe. One needs an indoor place to live to escape that toxic air. One's ability to pay rent or the mortgage, to continue to have a place to live, should not be a constant worry right now—yet another stressor on top of all the other stressors we live with in this historical moment.