[randallsquared]

The real heyday of this was early 2000s, after Bernanke used it in a speech the first time. Maybe he mentioned it again in 2016?

[joelwilliamson]

Bernanke used it in a speech for the first time in 2002, but it was coined back in 1969 by Milton Friedman.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_money

[lupire]

And Friedman was referring to 1930s Keynsian ideas about stimulus. Keynes's original version was paying people to needlessly smash rocks.