[GeekyBear]

We've also had four big rounds of Quantitative Easing from the Fed since the financial crisis, with the most recent coming right after the pandemic.

https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing

[bryanlarsen]

The significant post-pandemic inflation came during a period of Quantitative Tightening.

[ambicapter]

This really feels like the original sin to me (I am not remotely an economist). Perhaps it can just be fixed with taxes to take money out of circulation.

[m101]

Central bank money printing is morally bad given it's largely used to bail out either irresponsible government spending, or irresponsible private sector actors.

Central banks could reduce their balance sheets significantly more (and until recently the pace was pretty quick), but given where things are today it will undoubtedly be pretty politically unpalatable to do so (bond markets puking, making deficits even worse in the face of an inability to cut spending).

[d1sxeyes]

“We’re going to increase taxes!” “To spend on better public services?” “Nah, we’re just gonna burn it”

Easier said than done, I think.

[eadmund]

Is it possible that a fair amount of government expenditures are just a fancy way of burning money? E.g. cowboy poetry festivals.

[d1sxeyes]

The money doesn’t get burned though, it goes somewhere. Whether it’s for equipment hire or facilities or to compensate the cowboy poets for their time, or whatever.

[FuriouslyAdrift]

Smartest thing to do but politically radioactive...