Comment by pfannkuchen
Comment by pfannkuchen 7 hours ago
> printed a boatload of cash and gave it out as furlough for waiters and nurses and construction workers … US printed 10 trillion dollars
Well, I don’t think 10 trillion was paid to waiters and nurses and construction workers, etc. I’m curious what that actual number was. I’d be surprised if it touched 1 trillion. Something like 250 billion sounds more plausible to me, but if anyone has a source that would be interesting.
10 trillion was added to the money supply, but I believe the vast majority of it went somewhere else and never passed through the sort of people you mention.
The money supply expansion did juice the stock market and avoided a recession on paper, while shifting real value from savers and earners over to asset holders. Working as intended, I suppose.
I think the biggest BS aspect of inflation is that wages are set in USD basically universally and are therefore subject to inflation.
You can choose to move your savings out of USD and into something more stable, but if you are a worker you can’t move your comp into anything else.
The second most BS part is being taxed on inflation whenever you sell assets. Even if the asset doesn’t have any real appreciation, you get to pay tax on whatever the government decided to inflate the currency by. Absolute nonsense.
I think we are in basic agreement
>>> while shifting real value from savers and earners over to asset holders. Working as intended, I suppose.
No furlough directly did not receive all of that but the “cost of covid” (the amount spent by government without taxing it back) was on that order. I wish I had a better line accounting of it.
But the basic effect is the same - the owners of assets - the wealthiest in society, get a greater proportion of the “tokens that allocate future resource allocation” (dollars) than previously - and this means they put that money somewhere - and we see that as inflation everywhere.
The solution as I see it is taxing the assets (not a “wealth tax” but more same approaches).