wasn't quanatative easing done for like a decade after tbe recession with no inflation? why is there any reason to think this time around will be different? scale?
No inflation? Look what new money has bought and you will clearly see huge inflation: stocks and housing.
We don't see shopping cart inflation because it's countered by the technological cheapening of the production. And the key fact that new money is not being given to people buying groceries.
I never understood how anyone can find it remotely fair for the Fed to introduce new money into the economy by any means other than equal division between all citizens.
The flip side is somewhat problematic: if the Fed needed to remove money from the economy (e.g. because inflation exceeded the target rate), they would have to take money away from everyone equally.
It is easy to forget that the Fed's mission is to stabilize the value of money, not to conform to some concept of fairness. I would also point out that instability in the value of money disproportionately impacts the poor, who have the least savings available to deal with price shocks (if you are living paycheck to paycheck, then the price of bread suddenly doubling will leave you eating half as much bread).
Thing is, we already have a mechanism for removing money from the economy that isn't controlled by the Fed - taxation. If there's too much money, you can always increase taxes.
The difference is that taxation is subject to political forces, and politicians may not be able to pursue an unpopular policy that stabilizes the value of money. The Fed is mostly immune to short-term political needs and often pursues unpopular actions to meet its objectives.
Is there a reason that congress couldn't bestow upon the Fed some powers of taxation, while still leaving it free of the political constraints that the legislature faces?
The Fed introduces new money into the economy through two major mechanisms: setting a target interest rate on overnight loans, and buying assets at market rates. It's not clear how either of those would be extended to an equal division between all citizens, the vast majority of whom don't want overnight loans and don't have financial assets they want to sell.
Without sarcasm, given the latest purchases of assets beyond Treasuries and MBS, why do you think the Federal Reserve has purchased assets at market rates?
It's my understanding that their asset purchase programs involve just buying things normally on the open market. It's of course a bit more complicated than "market rate", since large purchases marginally affect the price, but as far as I know nobody gets a special deal where the Federal Reserve pays 1.5x what the bonds are worth.
It seems unfortunate to give up a useful tool for managing the economy just because it can't be structured to provide everyone an equal amount of benefit. Should we end small business programs because not everyone's wealthy enough to own a small business?
I'd see the problem if it worked how I've sometimes seen it described, where rich people and banks are just getting free gifts of cash, but that's not accurate.
I don't see why it's unfortunate if there's an equally good tool that is more egalitarian.
Congress could give the Fed the power to, rather than just buy bonds (or whatever it is they do) introduce money to the economy simply by giving everyone money.
I understand that it is not exactly true that the rich are getting free money for nothing. But the whole reason we're talking about this here is that someone pointed out that all the new money supply from the Fed is finding its way straight to people and corporations that don't have anything better to do with it than buy assets, the prices of which continue to grow as a result, even while the GDP rate is plummeting.
Lastly, I'm totally open to the idea that someone will come along and explain to me why my idea for how the Fed should give everyone money is just not workable. If that happens, I'll be happy to have learned something useful. But it's definitely not clear to me, a priori, why it wouldn't work if it wouldn't.
> Should we end small business programs because not everyone's wealthy enough to own a small business?
The job of financing ventures should be done by private parties and the banking industry, not by government, but since they are too preoccupied chasing assets with cheap money they can't be bothered to.
This is just another way of saying “the Fed currently only introduces new money by ways that benefit certain corporations and wealthy people”. Just because they only do those two things doesn’t mean they couldn’t do other different things like just sending people more checks.
Congress created the Fed and gave it what powers it has. They (assuming a consensus among legislators) could totally have given it a different mechanism for controlling the money supply. Even one that culminated in a check being mailed to every citizen.
If it hurts their ability to invest in assets, then yes. Assets tend to appreciate over time and represent an excellent store of value. Taking that option away from people matters very much.
Some assets are indivisible, so increasing value makes it unaffordable. You can't buy a fraction of a house.
For things like stocks, if the increased value is driven by inflation, you get less for your money. So it takes more money to store the same amount of value there.
Isn't that basically what a REIT is? It's also possible to enter into joint ownership of a property. Roommates are also kind of like acquiring a fraction of a house.
I'm not an expert, but it seems to me the way CPI imputes the cost of housing and several other things is broken. It looks like most Americans have seen much more inflation in the cost of housing, healthcare and education than the CPI would have you believe.
It includes housing in the form of rent (imputed rent in case you own the house). OP was talking about housing as an investment (like stocks), which is not covered under CPI.
No, if you look at shadowstats, the house/rental prices, or the Big Mac index, you can see that there was significant inflation in the past 50 years. Governments are changing the measurement of the inflation to try to hide it.
We don't see shopping cart inflation because it's countered by the technological cheapening of the production. And the key fact that new money is not being given to people buying groceries.