[neffy]

The Federal Reserve's balance sheet, and its actions matter very much. What is essentially in the process of happening is a massive disconnect between the "operating system" of the economy - the financial system, which is in the process of crashing (bear with it, it's a very slow system it takes a while), and the economy - the computer - which is as you say, essentially fine, but no longer working because... operating system.

As far as the balance sheet itself is concerned, it's important to look at all of it - with any magician it's critical to watch both hands - and in this case, the right hand is doing this to the M2 money supply, i.e. creating $2 trillion.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2

Approximately 15% of the real money supply, or about $5,000 for every man, woman and child in the USA, had it been handed to them directly.

That's this month. If that has to be done every month for the rest of the year...

[thomashobohm]

That is NOT what M2 means! Have you discounted the value of the ETFs and bonds the Fed has purchased? They're not suddenly valueless.

[neffy]

M2 is the total sum of all liability deposit money in the US banking system, and liability money has dominated in all monetary transactions since at least 1890. (Dunbar.)

[thomashobohm]

This isn't your term paper-you don't need to cite your sources. But, if you're going to, at least try to do it correctly (the parentheses go inside the sentence, the period goes outside the parentheses).

Regardless, it's this line: "Approximately 15% of the real money supply, or about $5,000 for every man, woman and child in the USA, had it been handed to them directly" that I was referring to. That calculation does not reflect what the M2 number actually means. You already have a definition of M2, so I'm sure you can figure out where you went wrong yourself if you just stare at that for a little bit longer.