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A comment on Fed Prints Another $205B This Week, M2 Growing at Fastest Pace on Record. Parent comment

Re:Fed Prints Another $205B This Week, M2 Growing at Fastest... by codeisawesome on Friday April 24, 2020 @12:04PM (#22969511)
If IBM invested the money into actual research and product development - that would mean the money still enters the economy via the workers doing the research and development. I feel like this point isn't emphasised well enough in the quote above - and I wonder if the "anti buyback crowd" would have anything to say against that.
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Re:Fed Prints Another $205B This Week, M2 Growing at Fastest... by AnimalMuppet on Friday April 24, 2020 @12:24PM (#22969790)
Sure, but that would be research done by IBM. That would still be money spent - the researchers still get paid - but it might be less likely to result in usable technology and sellable products than if someone else did it.

The point isn't just to give people money to spend. IBM is not a basic income operation. The point is to develop and make stuff that people want to buy, and IBM arguably has been doing less well at that than others. So letting the money go to the others who are doing better seems like a reasonable plan.

(I doubt that IBM was thinking of it in this way, though...)

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Re:Fed Prints Another $205B This Week, M2 Growing at Fastest... by jetrink on Friday April 24, 2020 @12:15PM (#22969687)
That presumes that IBM knows how to create something of value with its R&D department. If the R&D department is just finding faster ways to answer Jeopardy questions, real resources are going to waste. Those smart people could be doing important work somewhere else.
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Re:Fed Prints Another $205B This Week, M2 Growing at Fastest... by throw0101a on Saturday April 25, 2020 @09:55AM (#22978126)
> that would mean the money still enters the economy via the workers doing the research and development.

How much is it IBM's job to have more money 'enter the economy' versus for it to make money for its owners at a good ROI?

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