It is quite obvious if you take a look at any online crypto/stock trading forum that a lot of those extra stimulus checks are not going towards anything useful. We know from basic economics which you seem to think is invalid that increasing the money supply (through deficit spending on stimulus checks) and money velocity (by giving it to consumers directly instead of through e.g. increasing the supply of credit) increases inflation. We're also seeing record demand for consumer goods like PS5s, electronics, etc. Those happen to be the same products that consumers with excess money buy. Not food, because they can already afford food without the stimulus checks.
2) I definitely don't think I know everything, or anything really.
3) When a very basic idiom taught in entry level economics proves true again and again, I'm not sure how much complexity is required to prove it false. At that point it just feels like fighting for the point of fighting.
I don't want to debate goods and bads, economic complexities, etc. I am just stating what is taught in entry level classes appears to be correct.
The covid check was economic stimulus. Like what Bush W did for example. It literally stimulates the economy every time, because for every one of you and me who don't need it and save it, by investing it in companies via mutual funds, there are people who immediately spend it on things like food, also giving money to companies.
Now here's what happens when you don't give money to companies: they have to take loans with interest. That interest is later paid by customers via increased prices, because the supply side cost is now higher.
Companies also go out of business w/o money. You now have less supply, for inelastic demand (because it's food). This increases prices.
So, econ101: prices went up. Because supply chains were affected by the pandemic, and when supply cost goes up, you pay more. If you didn't have the stimulus checks, they would have gone up more. Much more.
Paying attention in econ101 helps know this. What you missed by not paying attention, is they were referring to printing money and Not giving it to people. Like the government having to fund itself, or the king funding himself. A stimulus check is trickle up economics, and Lowers prices. So econ101 taught us the opposite of your takeaway from that class. That class was of course called microeconomics, not econ101.
> A stimulus check is trickle up economics, and Lowers prices.
How, in your mind, does this sentence make any sense? Don't worry you can really lay into me, I won't reply.
If Biden forgives student loans is that going to lower the price of tuition?
since the point of the program was to stimulate production of New cars, which it did, creating an increase in GDP and jobs, the experiment was a success.
If Biden forgives student loans it will not lower the price of tuition. Since the point of student loan forgiveness is to help people get on their feet, and buy houses and cars, it not lowering the price of tuition would also mean a success.
I'm guessing you have a house mortgage. If I pay that off for you, will it lower the price of your house? I guess there's no point in doing it then. Because you wouldn't take that monthly mortgage payment and instead buy more stuff or invest in stocks, boosting the economy. You would clearly spend it on sponsoring a super-spreader own-the-libs rally.
This applies during a pandemic, when the companies doing the supply are going out of business, and when the demand side is out of a job and out of money to spend with those companies.
But, since my first explanation, which is exactly the same as what I retyped here, was not read by you beyond an out of context sentence, I have a very good idea about how your brain works, and why it still makes no sense to you. Now talk a bit about why the vaccine is a plot to take away our freedom. I'm here for the entertainment.
I ask because I'm unfamiliar with the basic curriculum in economics, although in the sciences some of the early concepts that we are taught include:
* Correlation is not causation
* Confirmation bias should be overcome by posing relevant testable questions rather than relying on anecdotes.
Except "your basic idiom" actually turns out to not be true in a lot of cases. It turns out that when you look at cases of notable inflation, these are nearly always accompanied by substantial supply side shocks, and that's also happening now.
For a good research article of a related example, see https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c9160/revisions/c....
There is no practical way that handing out more money is going to create more resources. In theory there might be one, but in practice the globe just shut down percentages of the economy in response to the coronavirus. There are still policies in place where people willing and able to work are being mass-ejected from their jobs. Add money handouts to that and the only way to be surprised if prices go up is to be not paying any attention to anything economic.
Furthermore, nobody should forget that the subject of such policies is people. Not just numbers on a spreadsheet going up or down, but real life people who could need to eat, might have children to take care of, need a roof over their heads etc.