Debate Rages On - Generous UI Benefits Cause People Not To Work, Or Do They?

[oceangaia]

Where are you getting $7 Trillion?

[redguard57]

Originally Posted by oceangaia

Where are you getting $7 Trillion?

$3 Trillion congressional stimulus.

$4 Trillion quantitative easing and other monetary stimulus from the Fed - purchases of securities, bonds, etc.. Balance sheet went from $3T to $7T. Maybe slightly less depending on how you count what they've done... like 3.5T but I'm rounding up to 4.

It's even worse if you go back further. The Fed's balance sheet in 2007 was less than $1 Trillion. Now it is over $7 Trillion, 13 years later.

WHERE IS THE INFLATION??

[oceangaia]

Originally Posted by redguard57

$3 Trillion congressional stimulus.

$4 Trillion quantitative easing and other monetary stimulus from the Fed - purchases of securities, bonds, etc.. Balance sheet went from $3T to $7T. Maybe slightly less depending on how you count what they've done... like 3.5T but I'm rounding up to 4.

It's even worse if you go back further. The Fed's balance sheet in 2007 was less than $1 Trillion. Now it is over $7 Trillion, 13 years later.

WHERE IS THE INFLATION??

The last question is easy. There isn't inflation because the stimulus didn't ADD dollars to the economy it merely REPLACED dollars lost from the economy.

[redguard57]

Originally Posted by oceangaia

The last question is easy. There isn't inflation because the stimulus didn't ADD dollars to the economy it merely REPLACED dollars lost from the economy.

If true, it's gone largely to the people who didn't really need it. Inequality is being exacerbated.

But I see it differently. I think the what we've seen this year is realization of what the internet already did to the economy. We just didn't know it yet.

Digital goods are unlimited. This isn't the 20th century anymore, when an increased money supply would chased a finite supply of industrially produced goods (e.g. cars, refrigerators) causing inflation. With the internet we can just create infinite digital products to soak up excess money.

We can see it in the markets. If you drill down, a lot of stocks are still struggling - in particular the companies that deal in the economy of the real world. But the indices are up because of FAANGs. They are the digital economy, a kind of Matrix. They can soak up whatever money you pour into them.