Post date: Aug 25, 2020 3:51:32 AM
the text below is copypasta from an earlier post from cory.doctorow [1] only that the units have been adjusted as to be compatible, as indicated in orange color.
having taught a few students a bit of maths, digits can be more telling than words.
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"The phrase "Wall Street Versus Main Street" has a nice ring to it, but what does it actually mean?
Here's a very concrete example of how policies can be rigged to benefit the finance sector while destroying the productive economy.
The US central bank has created a "Main Street Lending Program" that is meant to be extending credit to imperilled small- and medium-sized enterprises, but so far it has only managed to lend out $531,000K. [2]
https://ft.com/content/91b69082-a99c-4287-8ed5-d85b0768d1a9
But there's another sector of the economy that is thriving in the downturn: the largest companies in America. These companies are not actually profitable for the most part, but their shares are trading at all-time highs, thanks in large part to their access to cheap credit.
Here's how that works: the US central bank has announced that it will buy as many bonds – even junk bonds from companies that had been mismanaged to the brink of bankruptcy before the crisis – from large firms.
The $454,000,000K!! that this infused into the finance sector has been used as leverage for further, privacy-sector borrowing – all told, ~$4,540,000,000K?!? [3] has shown up on large corporate balance-sheets since the crisis started."
suffice it to say that the financiers have created their own little reality that affects the rest of us.
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[1] hi cory, if you're reading this, then i'm flattered that you actually made it to this site. on a related note, please don't sue. you probably made it clear through a license, on whether i'm allowed to do this, but i was tl:dr. sorry: i'll take it down once you let me know.
[2] k = "thousands" .. or in other words, wtf?
[3] to put this in real terms: about $3,000mil more than the GDP of California and Texas combined (from 2019).