[webninja]

In 2008+ when they “printed money” via “Quantitative Easing”, they would buy bonds off the market. This puts printed money in the hands of bond holders. Presumably bond holders are very rich. Presumably very rich people already have a good enough car and already frequent restaurants. Now if the Fed printed money and put it in the hands of the middle class, not just the hands of the upper class, I’d bet you new cars would be bought and restaurants would be dined.

[gentleman11]

Years ago in Canada, one province decided to mail $500 cheques to every adult in the province as an economic stimulus after they had an oil and gas surplus. Apparently it helped a lot

And it wasn’t just middle class, but lower too...

[flukus]

Australia did this in 2008, part of the reason we avoided a recession. Parts of China have started doing the same for coronavirus.

[ceejayoz]

Alaska's been doing this since the 1980s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund

I prefer Norway's approach of saving (to the tune of nearly $200k per citizen!) for a rainy day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor...

[dageshi]

I think you're misrepresenting QE. The Bonds the fed bought eventually expire, the money they used to buy the bonds gets repaid to the fed. It's not like they gave the value of the bonds to "very rich people" and said "here buy another yacht on us".

[Donald]

Yes, the original bonds expired, but the Fed has actually resumed buying short-term treasury bonds since Sept 2019. This has offset long-term maturities (e.g., 10Y) rolling off and actually has resulted a net expansion in their balance sheet: https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren...

[gdubs]

“[...] restaurants would be dined.”

Kind of ignoring the root cause of this market sell-off.

[wrkronmiller]

> Presumably bond holders are very rich.

I'm not sure that's a safe assumption. These bonds could be held by pension funds etc...

If I am a blue-collar worker nearing retirement, and I find out my pension plan just imploded, it's definitely going to impact my spending negatively.

[webninja]

87% of Americans do not have pensions. [1]

The median savings for American families whose wage earners are between 56 and 61, is $17,000. [1]

34% of American adults have zero savings (retirement + non-retirement). [1]

Anecdotally, I had a Grandpa with a $60k/yr pension and he was definitely upper class.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/13/heres-how-many-americans-hav...

[Ambele]

Those statistics are crazy. I'm not sure how the world still functions.

[kgwgk]

> 87% of Americans do not have pensions.

By “pensions” do you mean defined benefit plans only?

[webninja]

See above citation around where it says 13% of Americans have a pension. Feel free to counter with a separate citation.

[kgwgk]

If you follow the link in the (misleading, in my opinion) “Given that less than 13 percent of Americans have pensions” quote, it says that

“In 1980, more than 148,000 DB plans covered 30 million active workers (38% of the workforce), but by 2008 just over 48,000 DB plans covered 18.9 million American active workers (13% of the workforce). Over the same period, the number of DC plans increased from 340,850 to 669,156 with an increase in active workers covered from 14 million (14% of the workforce) in 1980 to more than 67 million (46% of the workforce) in 2008.”

[heartbeats]

What you're describing is called "helicopter money". It was just tried in Hong Kong, with unimpressive results.

https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/hong-kong-embraces-helic...

https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2020/02/26/1582705518000/Helicop...

[HappySweeney]

The article is dated Feb 25, and mentions that the disbursement has yet to occur, so we don't have any data on the success of the measure, or do I have this wrong?

[salty_biscuits]

Australia had a similar thing during the gfc and they managed to dodge a recession.