[uup]

It’s going to kill the economy because the Fed is basically setting up perfect conditions for stagflation. Congress and the Fed caused the M1 money supply to 5X in just a period of two years. Of course there is going to be inflation in such a scenario. And yes, while the money supply isn’t the only factor that determines inflation, it certainly is a part and such a drastic change in the money supply almost certainly is a major cause of inflation.

But at least labor is strong. People are working and yes, they’re being squeezed by inflation, but they at least have some opportunity to change jobs for a raise or form a union to demand a higher share of profits. And that’s what we’re seeing in the economy. Now the Fed is saying that they want to pull some of the money back in, but the only way to do that is to hurt employment. People won’t get raises. People will be afraid to unionize. And Powell himself has said he has no idea if raising rates will even work to tame inflation. And despite this uncertainty, Powell has his pedal to the metal. He’s raising rates so fast he’s not even stopping to assess impact. So we’re basically trading a bird in hand (low unemployment) for two in the bush. People should be very afraid.

[pgwhalen]

> Congress and the Fed caused the M1 money supply to 5X in just a period of two years.

Oft-repeated, but incorrect. The way M1 is calculated was changed in 2020, and the apples to apples comparison is actually a little bit less than 2X.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL

[VirusNewbie]

fucking lol. 2X!!!!!! That's still unfathomable. We're lucky everything didn't double in price.

[lithos]

Not really inflation happens where the cash flows. And very little of that cash flowed into normal markets.

On the other hand you can point you can look at the stock market still increasing/staying level in COVID, to figure out where inflation hit first. (Markets up in a lockdown, sounds impossible).

Right now inflation is hitting low end markets through that cash finally hitting normal markets with the wealthy trying to hedge with land/properties, and wage increases.

[uup]

A lot of money did end up in normal markets. There is a lot of data for this. For instance, the Fed offers something called a reverse repo facility that allows institutions to deposit money overnight at the Fed. This is typically leveraged by money market funds. Over the course of the pandemic, the amount of reverse repo operations grew from 0 to over $2T.

A lot of the expansion was done via Covid stimulus, which put money directly into the hands of businesses and individuals. Unsurprisingly, people spent this money on all types of stuff, including equities and real estate.

[uup]

Thank you for the correction.