The ballooning money supply may be the key to unlocking inflation in the U.S.

Re:The ballooning money supply may be the key to unlocking i... by roenxi on Tuesday October 13, 2020 @05:15PM (#24770400)

When the government borrows money like the US does, then it is setting itself up to either run a hefty surplus or go with money printing. Both of those are pretty unpleasant for someone (either borrowers or savers). So yes, fiscal policy is where the eventual pain is locked in.

But, and I feel there is being something lost to semantics in this thread, we have an article reporting "the U.S. money supply has grown 20%". Given that the US economy has been partially shut down for most of that time it is hard to see what that can be described as except money printing. The alternatives are polite euphemisms for money printing or appeals to it all somehow being so complicated a measured >20% change doesn't count.

I still don't understand why people are so keen to let the government go unchecked (we don't send our best & brightest to be politicians) and to keep kicking salary earners to the benefit of asset earners (pretty sure we all earn a salary).

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Re:The ballooning money supply may be the key to unlocking i... by jganetsk on Tuesday October 13, 2020 @05:21PM (#24770454)

I'm not saying that we didn't print money this year. I'm arguing over how we measure the quantity of the money supply. I am saying that government debt = the quantity of money.

"The federal government ran a budget deficit of $3.1 trillion in fiscal year 2020, CBO estimates, more than triple the shortfall recorded in 2019"

By my definition, we did print $3.1 trillion of money this year.

I don't go by the size of the Fed balance sheet as money supply. There are many reasons for this, and plenty of people on this thread are trying to explain this view point.

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