| > I'm a layman too, so to be honest, it might not be productive for us to argue about these things. If the government issues $2 trillion dollars in bonds to fund the stimulus, that dries up the liquidity for businesses. Businesses that otherwise would have been fine weathering the pandemic with a private loan may be unable to receive one. As a result, they would have to furlough or lay off more employees, which further reduces lender confidence and sends us into a spiral that results in another Great Depression. Obviously, this is largely speculative, but my point is that in this case, QE went hand in hand with the stimulus. Point taken, maybe this is just 2 blind mice. I understand this argument, and agree with it on some level -- steadying the ship so people don't run on the banks is important, but it's just not that simple. Some sectors of the economy imploded and some didn't -- some grew as a result. Some companies needed the help, some arguably did not and should not have had the help extended, the indiscriminate use of this money is putting us on the road to zombie companies. The US has been doing stealth QE since 2008 with no end in sight -- we can't build real financial stability this way. As an aside, lender confidence is still shaken, credit has not grown and is in decline in the last 1Y period[0]. Lenders aren't buying the V shaped recovery narrative. If I think of this as purely a gambit to slow the process down (i.e. give businesses more time to absorb the shock) then fine, but if the goal is to stimulate the economy policies that enrich a segment of the population that does not spend isn't all that effective. We need worker wage growth. > That was the money allocated to this program. How much of it actually went to them? I couldn't find anything super up to date, but the Federal Reserve only bought $10 billion in corporate bonds compared to the $750 billion capacity [1], and businesses only borrowed $3.7 billion of $600 billion capacity of the Main Street Lending Program. My point on this was the messaging, that this point was overlooked, regardless of whether it was used or not. The Fed played the situation masterfully and essentially bluffed the market into buying the corporate bonds (because they believed in the backstop), but it's this backstop-at-any-cost that is a problem in my mind. The main street lending and PPP programs are not what I'm referring to (though there was some graft there from larger corporations). As far as the PMCCF and the SMCCF, the Fed lent out 750B[1]: > A related initiative by the Fed was the Primary Market Corporate Credit Facility (PMCCF). Between the two initiatives, the Fed purchased $750 billion in bonds Also, the PPPLF[2] is a bit of an issue in my mind because of this: > The PPPLF extends term credit to financial institutions making PPP loans, accepting the PPP loans as collateral. The liquidity provided by the PPPLF helps eligible financial institutions fund additional PPP loans. The PPPLF was established under the Board's 13(3) authority and the extension from March 31 to June 30, 2021, was approved by the Secretary of the Treasury. So their goal here is to make more money available to financial institutions to make loans but with credit in decline, who is getting these loans? Businesses who arguably do not need them and/or people with cozy access to banks. > Also, why is it that subsidized debt gets treated like it's a handout when a business takes it, but when it comes to student loans, it's treated as a liability? Some points on how I see this: - Student loans are very very hard to discharge, usually persisting through bankruptcy - The narrative is usually the opposite —- companies are to be protected at all times whereas students should have just studied something else or went to community college instead. Companies are not in the same financial position as random students but the negligence should weigh heavier on a large corporation. - In terms of generating consumption and economic activity, companies with already-large war chests, or ones that were eager in the past to do leveraged stock buybacks and running on razor thin margins should not be rewarded for doing so. Money spent towards freeing debt for people likely to spend should do more to increase spending and increase the velocity of money (which is down in the dumps still[3]). [0]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TOTLL [1]: https://www.investopedia.com/secondary-market-corporate-cred... [2]: https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/mone... [3]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2V |
I agree, but in my view, the Federal Reserve is about the only institution doing their job to stabilize the economy. The problem is they're only meant to provide short term fixes, much like an ER doctor. Meanwhile, Congress primarily prioritizes bribing their voting base: Republicans through unnecessary tax cuts and Democrats through unnecessary handouts and pork spending. I agree with extending unemployment benefits during a pandemic, but it's ridiculous for single people making $75k to get a handout that comes straight from government debt.
>As far as the PMCCF and the SMCCF, the Fed lent out 750B[1]:
Your source says this, but its source is about their total capacity. If you look at their balance sheet, excluding the Main Street Lending program, they are only holding ~34.5 billion in corporate debt.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/current/h41.htm