>buying all kinds of stuff with their insane pandemic checks

When is this meme going to stop? How is a couple of $1200 checks over the course of 6 months enough to let people buy every home on the market all of the sudden?

You are mistaken. People have been (I believe it stopped now everywhere) $600 PER WEEK in addition to unemployment, AND the two stimulus checks of ~$2000 total, one of which you referred to. And on top of that, many people have stopped paying their rent due to the "eviction moratorium" that has left property owners with nothing but likely un-collectable debt.

As someone who has also remained essentially totally unaffected like most or at least a large part of us here probably, I can tell you that there is a whole set of consequences lurking in the shadows that many people are not even been aware of, largely because it has been intentionally obscured in hopes that it will all just go away … or something.

There is also the Child Tax Credit.

"$3,000 to $3,600 per child for nearly all working families The Child Tax Credit in the American Rescue Plan provides the largest child tax credit ever and historic relief to the most working families ever."

https://www.whitehouse.gov/child-tax-credit/

Plus the fraud. I know in some neighborhoods almost everyone is getting "their $10K small business loan", sharing tips on group chat about how to lie on the forms.

You know that? Here’s the tip line: https://coronavirus.house.gov/contact/tip-line

I hate to chuckle, but you should start mentally adjusting to the fact that the rule of law is at best a selectively enforced thing at this point. I suspect that these many instances of fraud may even be used as leverage against people whenever it may be needed. I say that because I know that kind of thing is done and I would do exactly that if it ever came up. Anyone who has fraudulently taken any of those "loans" is not totally compromised to run or not to run for office or to hold certain positions or say certain things.

What do you mean? Who cares who did what wrong thing, it would all depend on which news about it the media, twitter, and facebook decide to suppress or amplify, wouldn't it?

Can you not think back to a couple of instances of people running for pretty high offices when that was the case?

It's already been reported, and little enforcement. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-10-29/small-bus...

The eviction moratorium ended, so did the $600/week.

Presumably we should start to see a big deflation, and an oversupply of available housing as a result if this theory is right.

Well the money is already in the economy now, the only way you see deflation is if that reverses, not just stops. You're probably right that as evictions begin to happen there will be a reduction in housing costs, so that is good. But as far as the new money circulating, the inflation rate might just go back to normal but the inflation that already happened is probably here to stay.

But those checks were issued in the face of a massive spike in unemployment so they were just filling part of the gap left by missing wages.

Crucially, they exceeded the gap left by missing wages. Poverty in the U.S. actually fell last year.

Not sure which stat you are referring to, but if they are lumping child poverty in the general aggregate then a significant portion of that relief comes from the expanded Child Tax Credit.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/25/child-tax-credit-lifted-3-mi...

I'm probably conflating the effects. Thanks for the correction.

> couple of $1200 checks

100s of millions of checks, amounting to trillions of dollars. This is economics 101 that directly printing the money increases inflation. These kind of money accumulates in the hands of few and the market had been quick to act on concentrating the $1200 checks.

I'm not saying it's not due to these stimulus measures, but I think the economics 101 lesson is kind of refuted by a decade of quantitative easing, which did not cause significant consumer price inflation. The specifics of where you point the money spigot matter, it's more subtle than print money == inflation in today's highly complex economy.

This stimulus is different from QE in the sense that it went directly to consumers. QE never went directly to consumers, but instead stayed with banks. Personally, I think you can see QE's inflationary effect in both the stock and housing market, but that's just me.

Yea I have heard that argument, and I kind of buy it, but to a certain degree it still surprises me that different kinds of inflations can stay compartmentalized for so long.

For example I benefited handsomely from the asset inflation in the stock market, and used some of my proceeds for consumer spending. My relatives benefited from inflated housing prices, sold their house and are now living it up in their retirement.

Why doesn't more 'leakage' like this take place over a decade?

Not according to our Economic Overlords in the Fed and Treasury who still, even today, believe 100% of the inflation is about supply chain bottle necks, not their irresponsible money printing

When anti-vaxxers are asked to trust the science and listen to the experts, they are simultaneously being asked to ignore inflation by economists and different experts.

How do you convince someone that one group of experts is telling the truth?

Simple: remind them that one group of people are scientists, and the other aren’t.

Economics isn’t a hard science. The system is too complex to create theories and test them, so every theory is tested in the production environment of the (usually poor) peoples lives that these things effect.

And hey wouldn’t you know: the rich elites who make up the economists who propose these absurd ideas like “velocity of money” also end up being in the same class as the ones who make billions or trillions of dollars off of their economic theories.

The US government has made over $3.4 trillion in budgetary outlays in response to the pandemic. It comes in many forms, not just $1,200 checks.

$3.4 trillion is a lot of money to add to the economy in 2 years.

The Paycheck Protection Program handed nearly every business in American hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars in loans (at 0.50% APR), then immediately forgave them.

The $1200 checks are nothing by comparison. Everyone American got a month rent paid for by the government, but the privileged "business owners" got and entire house paid for, with enough left over to buy their entire family new cars.

I know a few business owners who received these checks and in their cases, A) they weren't nearly that much, B) they (helped) cover expenses, like paying rent and employees (the majority of their costs). I would expect the vast majority of non-fraudulent PPP ended up in the hands of employees first, for rent second, and to business owners pockets third (or not at all in many cases, e.g. plenty of places went out of business).

> The $1200 checks are nothing by comparison.

By what measure exactly? The total expenditure for those was >800 billion, which I believe is more than the total expenditure for the PPP.

There are public records of PPP payouts. There is no shortage of BS on it too. There are pages and pages of million dollar+ loans in my neck of the woods.

A local pizza joint took home a quarter million dollars. Local two-person investment firm: $260k. Family member of mine bragging about record revenues & so much work: 300k. Two places I used to work (who are bragging on LI about having too much work so are hiring like mad, one of which uses mostly offshore workers) $1.7MM and $1.1MM. Big local property management company benefiting from outrageous rents: $2MM. Several staffing companies $10MM!! That might be the max, there are lots of $10MM companies on the list.

And there are countless 1 person LLCs that took home $20k+. Go put in your ZIP, sort by least number of employers and look at how many individuals where handed out five figures. Bunches of them around me were lawyers and accountants.

> The total expenditure for those was >800 billion, which I believe is more than the total expenditure for the PPP.

Barely, they were both around $800 billion. Just one went to every American, while the other went to the Business Class (who also received those stimulus checks, btw).

This is key. Around here a bunch of small construction firms took PPP loans despite having a full pipeline of work. The housing construction boom continued unbated despite the pandemic.

Seriously, I’d genuinely like to understand this more.

As the previous comment said, all I see around me are people buying new cars (for MSRP+) and overpriced homes. My home value went up 32%. And yet the market is “ extremely hot”. And no, lower APR won’t make up for 30% base price increase, that math does not add up.

My family gets “extra” $550 for kids (that’s gonna be missing in my next tax credit). Other than that - HOW are so many people affording so much now???

From my limited understanding, I think the general financial system with the banks lending large amounts of money and people accepting it because of very low interest rates contributes massively. There is a lot of extra cash floating around with unemployment checks, stimulus checks, tax credits, as well as easy credit, which means that mortgages increase, people's home value increases, they sell and push it up. Then people are spending more money on stocks, which means stock values go up, people believe they are richer because of the paper value of stocks, homes, etc. There has been a large amount of hype around all of these, eventually it comes crashing down and someone is left holding the bag with whatever position they were in.

You forget upper middle class saved a bunch of money during lockdown (no travel, no dining out, no commuter expenses etc), along with having IPOs or other investments increase in value.

It's not that money is abundant, it's that debt is cheap.

Where I live everyone got money from unemployment and then months later the state sent letters to people about "overpayment". And its for large amounts of money like $20,000+.

I have friends and neighbors that took advantage of it. Seems like everyone spent their 'stimmy' on a camper or raising a truck

The stimulus checks, boosted unemployment, and PPP loans were funded by the money printer. That's trillions in new money.

The housing market dynamic has been (not enough) building for decades.

Another example of grade-school economics - cherry pick a couple of points and draw a stick figure - proved!

Let me try: more money in circulation means sales volume goes up, so prices fall (according to actual economic theory).

Or: folks have more money so live healthier, increasing productivity and using fewer healthcare resources, so the economy benefits.

It's easy! Just throw out some money-sounding words and make the rest up.

> Let me try: more money in circulation means sales volume goes up, so prices fall (according to actual economic theory).

Only true under certain circumstances. In general, when Demand increases, and Supply doesn't increase to match, prices go up.

That may happen longer term, but the problem is supply at the moment is not able to grow to meet the increased demand. Just look at all the articles about container ships queueing up at ports, and companies unable to hire enough workers, chip shortages brining manufacturing lines to a halt, energy price spikes.

There's proving to be a significant drag on capacity at the same time as the burst in demand. So it's not just QE driving this, but it's certainly a factor.

> Let me try: more money in circulation means sales volume goes up, so prices fall (according to actual economic theory).

Not according to any economic theory I've heard of.

If consumer incomes rises then the demand curve should shift to the left. This will move the intersection of the supply and demand curves to a point where both quantity supplied and price are higher.

Except when supply is flexible. Manufacturing in higher volume will reduce cost.

No, it's not easy. But we do know that increasing the money supply faster than economic growth creates inflation. We also know that inflation helps the rich and hurts the poor since it inflates asset prices faster than wages. And guess who owns most of the assets.

The actual issue here is the Fed helicopter dumping into asset markets dwarfed stimulus checks to individuals. That is why it makes no sense to blame it on stimulus checks. The CARES Act allocated $560 billion in individual relief checks. The Fed asset purchases for 2020 is the $3.4 trillion number. That's more than 6 times as much.

> for a phenomenon this simple

While what you describe might be one factor contributing to higher inflation, it certainly isn't the only one.

Supply chain pipeline bubbles are likely another.

Unbridled dollar printing and massive govt. debt probably contributes as well.

The US quickly losing ground as a superpower thereby undermining the status of the USD as a reserve currency probably a factor.

etc ...

There is no way the euro or the yuan will take over anytime soon.

> There is no way the euro or the yuan will take over anytime soon.

Who said anything about taking over?

A world without a reserve currency will be a much better place to live.

I haven't really kept up, but haven't those essentially stopped now, leaving only regular unemployment? I am curious what that will cause because I have heard conflicting information on whether people saved their money or spent it all, not to mention people who have just stopped paying their rent … a whole other ticking time bomb.