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by toomuchtodo 2284 days ago
Whoa there with the false equivalency. Helicopter money would be more helpful than propping up the wealth of the top wealth brackets using price floors through broad scale asset purchases. Literally give away hundreds of billions of dollars to citizens who will spend it right this minute. Have the government be economic demand of last resort to steady the ship until people can actually move about again. There will be no inflation to speak of due to how GDP has plummeted over the last few weeks.

Monetary velocity > asset price protection. The stock market isn’t the economy, people producing, consuming, and exchanging fiat in the process are.
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AznHisoka 2284 days ago
This.

Can someone with some financial background refute this? Why is buying assets a better idea? In concrete, non-abstract, non-hand-wavey, laymen terms, how is it going to make the Average Joe get through this crisis? How is it going to help him pay for his rent/food/etc in the next 2-3 months, and potentially longer when he possibly will have no job?

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QuesnayJr 2284 days ago
Legally, the Fed can't do that. Only the government can. Anyway, the Fed is mostly buying government debt or government-guaranteed debt. By buying up the existing debt, this creates space for the government to borrow and spend on supporting Average Joe.

Alternatively, the Treasury could print money and mail it out to Average Joe. But then there's no way for the Fed take the money out of circulation if we get inflation.

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Frost1x 2284 days ago
> The stock market isn’t the economy, people producing, consuming, and exchanging fiat in the process are.

You might get tarred-and-feathered if you keep speaking like that. Be careful ;)

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toomuchtodo 2284 days ago
Judge me by the enemies I’ve made.
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QuesnayJr 2284 days ago
What do you think helicopter money looks like? The Treasury borrows a bunch of money from the Fed, and then sends it out. The Fed ends up owning large amounts of Treasuries. The only difference is that the Fed isn't waiting for the Treasury. If the Treasury starts writing checks tomorrow, it's effectively helicopter money.
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