BE ESTONIA:

First, checks. Really? Practically every American has a smartphone. There are tons of banking apps from Paypal to Zelle to Venmo. The U.S. Treasury has a website called Treasury Direct that allows anyone to set up an account to buy Treasury bills and bonds. The government could simply reverse the direction of those transactions and send cash from the Treasury to those account holders. No holdups in the mail. No missing addresses. Best of all, we could make it recurring. 

We have all heard about the "K-shaped" economic recovery that the U.S. is experiencing. The top 20% of U.S. society commands 80% of the wealth. Whenever that is threatened by a market crash or a pandemic, the Fed swings into action to provide "support" for those markets. What that really means is buying lots of bonds and flooding banks and businesses with cash to stabilize them. The Fed can even promise to buy certain types of assets, such as corporate bonds, to stabilize their price.

The Fed is able to do this because its "pipes" flow from the Fed to the big banks and then out to big firms. The Treasury, what the rest of us rely on, has no pipes, hence the checks. This is not only unfair -- boosting the price of assets held by society's richest citizens while telling the vast majority to wait for a check is a first-rate inequality booster. It's also harmful and needlessly expensive. Recognizing this, we should rethink our financial plumbing and the purpose of our pandemic response. Not just for this crisis, but for the future.  [...]

Second, rather than pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into the banking and corporate sectors, somehow hoping that this will impact employment, let's make these insurance payments electronic, automatic and targeted at families up to the 60th percentile of the income distribution.

Congress can set an employment target such that when U.S. unemployment reaches a certain level the Treasury automatically sends out checks. When the target goes back to its pre-recession peak, the checks automatically stop. This would impact families directly, and given that they will spend what they receive it will not all end up pumping up an asset bubble and ever greater inequality with it. This would be far cheaper than what we currently do and far more effective. It would give the Fed less to do and target Treasury resources far more effectively. Worried about cost or even future inflation? Easy. Once we return to the target, raise taxes. Both problems are solved. 

Direct payments to families are effective. The first check issued in the spring of 2020 was a primary reason that U.S. poverty fell at the start of the recession. 

The European country of Estonia is steeped in history--it's home to the best-preserved medieval capital in Northern Europe. But in the 21st century, Estonia is perhaps most famous for looking to the future, thanks to building an impressive system of e-government.

Estonia is among the elite group of countries in the highest echelons of the UN's E-Government Development Index (EDGI), with its citizens and public servants able to access a wide range of services online using secure digital IDs, including making payments, accessing full health records, and internet voting.

Estonia has been building out its e-government since the mid-90s, not long after declaring independence from the Soviet Union. The program continues to make headlines with bold new digital initiatives, such as its e-residency program, which gives anyone living anywhere in the world the ability to receive a government-issued digital ID and full access to Estonia's public e-services.

Today, 99% of the public services are available online 24/7, 30% of Estonians use i-Voting, and the country estimates the reduced bureaucracy has saved 800 years of working time.

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