Michael argues sending people checks is the most effective recession-fighting tool, acknowledging the last round of checks contributed to painful inflation but framing that as a supply-chain problem rather than a reason not to do it again. ✦ AI generated
Michael Batnick · The Compound · 2026-07-15 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 31:22
I know what happened last time. It caused all of the [ __ ] that we're living through right now. Inflation destroyed the fabric of our society. Hugely unpopular. Obviously it was terrible.
verbatim transcript · starts at 31:22
31:22caused all of the [ __ ] that we're living through right now. Inflation destroyed the fabric of our society. Hugely unpopular. Obviously it was terrible. >> The way that you described inflation there, it sounds like it's like a bad guy in Avengers. >> Worse. But part of the reason why we got the inflation was not just the the checks. it was that the supply chain was turned
31:47off, >> right? >> And there was a huge imbalance of way too much demand and not enough of supply. Assuming that is not the case in the next recession, assuming things are functioning normally, I don't I think that like obviously will be inflationary to some degree, it's never going to happen because the political impulse will be so >> yeah. >> Tomrad Badnick, welcome to the socialist side of things.
32:07>> I love it. Let's do it. >> All right. He also says rich people just own so many stocks. The top 10% owns 87%. >> Wait, hold on, comrade Batnik. This is a very important this is a very important thing. >> I agree with you. If you want to slow a recession, giving people money, like you're right. It it it totally >> But there is there is a huge school of
32:27thought that thinks that the economy that recessions are healthy, that people just need to take their medicine >> and things need to die in order in order to be reborn. And I totally get it. I'm not saying that I disagree with that sentiment entirely, but I am saying what if you could ease the pain a little bit and make people's lives a little bit less horrific. >> Especially for the especially for those
32:58who need it the most >> because the people that say that the economy needs to take its medicine are never the ones that are going to be collecting unemployment checks, whose lives are going to be turned upside down in a recession. It's it's think people, right? It's people whatever on Wall Street >> people who will have the means to buy stocks when they're down. All right. So
33:15the question is let's say the stock market is too big to fail. What is what is the second and third order effects here and what are the and I don't know exactly what the risks are like we lop off the left tail. It's gone. The left tail of Great Depression. See you later. What does that mean? Now here's my thesis of what this means. It means that