Report: 75 Percent of the $800 Billion In PPP Cash Never Reached Workers

P. Gardner Goldsmith | July 13, 2022
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You know how the U.S. Constitution specifically enumerates the so-called “powers” granted to the federal government, and the Tenth Amendment also expressly prohibits the feds from doing anything not enumerated?

And, you know how the Constitution also grants the U.S. Congress the power to coin money, and, though it does not claim that the Congress can coin the only money, it explicitly states that the currency the feds use must be coinage? It’s in Article One, Section Eight, Clause Five:

“To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures…”

Well, even as it provides us with information about predictable government misspending, a new report also reminds us that D.C. politicians and their interstate appendages have, for decades, dismissed and disregarded both of those constitutional provisions.

The report is about the COVID-tied 2020 Paycheck Protection Program (PPP, part of the $2 TRILLION CARES Act), and comes to us from the St. Louis branch of the Congressionally-created Federal Reserve bank – the bank that, since 1913, has been granted an unconstitutional nationwide monopoly on the issuance of money, and has pumped out paper and digital counterfeit to such an extent that the buying power of the “Dollar” has been reduced by 2.5 percent each year on a compounded functional scale – so, in reading the info, perhaps one has to recall the lack of any foundation for the monopoly bank, even as one takes what he can get when it comes to the scandal the St. Louis Fed reveals.

It also comes to us more than a YEAR after news of massive PPP fraud investigations surfaced.

According to Fed authors Drew Dahl and William R. Emmons, there are a few new “problems” emerging from $800 billion Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) that Congress, the Senate, and Donald Trump trumpeted in 2020 as salvation for “American workers.” Perhaps you know one such person, or are one of the people the politicians claimed to be saving.

Those would be people whom federal, state, and local politicians, bureaucrats, and police actually victimized like Kulaks, people who were deemed “non-essential,” were locked out of their businesses, or kept from working because they would not accept sketchy jabs during the unconstitutional so-called “COVID19 emergency” declaration which Joe Biden continues to this day.

Those would be folks whom the politicians used like props, as said politicians took their tax cash, increased the government debt they and their progeny will be enslaved to pay, and crushed the buying power of their savings.

Well, in addition to the fundamental problem that the PPP program had no grounding in any enumerated constitutional power, it turns out that that 75 percent of that $800 billion didn’t even go to the people the politicians claimed they were helping.

Just The News puts it succinctly:

“Taxpayers paid $4 for every $1 in wages and benefits received by workers in jobs saved by the federal government’s pandemic Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), according to a new study by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The Fed study also found PPP didn’t support jobs at risk of disappearing, and money flowed disproportionately to wealthier households.”

And we should note that the concept of that one-quarter of the program actually “saving” jobs dismisses the fact that, first, one can’t be sure the jobs were saved, and, second, even if any jobs were saved, those came at the expense of something else, because, whether it be taxation that occurred in 2020, or it comes in the future to pay for the PPP, the “saving” of the jobs takes away tax money from people who would have spent it themselves, on what they value, so those choices have been eliminated, and we’ll never see the jobs they might have created.

Related: California Man Arrested After Using $5 Million in COVID Relief Loans To Buy Luxury Cars and Vacations | MRCTV

The additional point about the money flowing “disproportionately to wealthier households” is emotionally triggering, and one should keep in mind that it plays on class envy even as it discounts the fact that people who earn more usually pay higher tax rates, and, unless they can use wily accountants, pay more in taxes of all stripes.

But the report does show us how the typical “government-corporate” glad-handing system works, and confirms precisely what some folks (this writer, among them) predicted would happen, circa 2020.

“A)lmost three-quarters of its (PPP) benefits went to unintended recipients, including business owners, creditors and suppliers, rather than to workers.”

Again, one needs to note that the St. Louis Fed authors are using editorial license to define the term “workers” as they see fit. Business owners work, and, in fact, so do creditors and “suppliers.” But the point is that the D.C. politicians were the ones who first played on that “helping working Americans” rhetoric, and implied that they were helping “employees,” rather than the business owners, creditors, and so on.

It sure is interesting to remind oneself to step away from their rhetoric, even as one calls them out on the fact that their rhetorical claims were about as bogus as the Federal Reserve Note they call the Dollar.

Offers Just The News:

“The research also found the cost per job saved for one year was $169,000 to $258,000. The average wage and benefits for a small business employee was $58,200 in 2020.”

And they also observe:

“The Small Business Administration reported 90% of the nearly $800 billion in PPP loans were forgiven by last month, according to the study.”

In other words, PPP loans weren’t loans. They were handouts, bailouts, and you’re either paying for them now, or you and your children and grandchildren will pay off the federal bonds the feds floated in order to make themselves look like saviors.

During the lockdowns and economy-killing fearmongering that they fostered.

None of it was constitutional, and even the St. Louis Federal Reserve operates contrary to the coinage clause of the U.S. Constitution.

But we take what we can get, and this info helps reminds us not only of how poorly government bailouts are managed, but also of the more fundamental breaches of constitutional law and morality that undergird the entire monetary and political system running the United States.

Related: Federal Reserve Ready To Buy Corporate Bonds, Thanks To New 'Super-Power' From CARES Act | MRCTV

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