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?
I do not know what the law allows, but in principle a government could give such power to its central bank, and there is some precedent (the ancient Romans had a system of private tax collectors, who would basically pay the government for a kind of license to collect taxes). I am not sure there would be much of a point, since the Fed can always raise interest rates, which has the same effect on the supply of money and ultimately affects the general population in the same way (you are left with less money to save/invest/blow on parties). Taxation is somewhat more direct e.g. higher property taxes have to be paid immediately whereas a fixed rate mortgage will not suddenly become more expensive when interest rates rise, but in terms of stabilizing the value of money it does not make much of a difference one way or the other. The fact that taxes are more direct actually makes taxation the preferred tool of politicians, who typically resort to tax cuts when they are desperate for votes or propose taxes on the wealthy in order to rally support from the working class.
The difference between taxation and rate hikes is that taxes are generally progressive, while rate hikes being progressive or not depends on a lot of factors (but they can be). Taxation is a much more precise tool than rate hikes.
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.
>I'm totally open to the idea that someone will come along and explain to my why my idea for how the Fed should give everyone money is just not workable.
Congress has this power, and can always use it. The fed doesn't have this power, and that's because a bunch of unelected bankers aren't supposed to be making political decisions about wealth distribution.
Read up on the difference between fiscal stimulus and monetary stimulus...it's impossible to have an intelligent discussion on this subject without knowing how those things differ.
Fiscal stimulus is when the state pays money that it already has (or that it borrows for the purpose) into the private sector so that private entities will have cash and engage in spending.
Monetary stimulus is when the central bank increases the supply of money in the economy to control the value of a unit of currency as measured relative to units of goods and services, which in theory can have similar effects on people's spending behavior.
Either can be done with any degree of fairness or unfairness.
And neither necessarily has to be done by the mechanisms through which the world's governments have historically tended to do them.
I agree that I don't want a few unelected central bank officials making decisions about wealth distribution. That doesn't mean that congress can't specify a different mechanism for them to introduce money into the economy.
> 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.
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).