Timeline for Can the U.S. government cut a check to taxpayers by printing more money?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
18 events
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| Nov 15, 2017 at 18:38 | comment | added | jamesqf | @RobertF: I thought that was implicit in my comment, because writing sufficiently large checks would of course create more money than the economy could absorb. | |
| Nov 14, 2017 at 18:16 | comment | added | RobertF | @jamesqf Not necessarily - if the economy isn't operating at full capacity then it can absorb more money (up to a point of course): businesses keep up with the excess demand while competition holds inflation in check. | |
| Nov 14, 2017 at 18:02 | comment | added | jamesqf | @RobertF: Could they write checks and create new money to cover them? Sure, but the problem is that the subsequent inflation would reduce the value of the money people already had, so that on average no one would be better off. (Of course savers would be hurt, people with debts would be helped.) | |
| Nov 14, 2017 at 17:20 | vote | accept | RobertF | ||
| Nov 14, 2017 at 13:30 | answer | added | Machavity | timeline score: 4 | |
| Nov 14, 2017 at 6:12 | history | reopened |
Alexei user 1 Federico Communisty agc |
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| Nov 13, 2017 at 14:42 | comment | added | RobertF | @jamesqf Right, but let's say the politicians in Washington ignore the advice from the economists & want an immediate, direct fiscal stimulus? The closest you could get to throwing bales of cash out of a plane. :-) | |
| Nov 13, 2017 at 14:38 | comment | added | RobertF | @phoog Could, for example, the President issue an executive order or Congress pass a bill authorizing the Treasury to run the printing presses that wouldn't be immediately overturned by after judicial review? I don't know. You'd think more presidential candidates would promise big payouts to taxpayers (eg, $1,000 to every household in the 15% tax bracket), whatever the long term economic consequences. | |
| Nov 12, 2017 at 6:28 | comment | added | jamesqf | @RobertF: Even so, the amount of new money supply is limited by that same equation, so the check to each taxpayer won't be very much. | |
| Nov 11, 2017 at 19:47 | comment | added | Brythan | The Federal Reserve does not issue or print currency. The treasury does. That's the situation right now. The Federal Reserve effectively controls the size of the money supply by controlling the reserve fraction. Most money is not printed. It only exists as balances on bank ledgers. The Federal Reserve controls the rules around those balances. It does not not control the physical money supply. | |
| Nov 11, 2017 at 16:30 | comment | added | phoog | Sure, but that is not an assumption in your question. Anyway, the trivial answer to your question seems to be "yes": a law could authorize the payment of funds from the treasury to individual taxpayers. But since that trivial answer also seems rather unsatisfying, I wonder what exactly you mean by "can." | |
| Nov 11, 2017 at 15:51 | review | Reopen votes | |||
| Nov 14, 2017 at 6:12 | |||||
| Nov 11, 2017 at 15:37 | comment | added | RobertF | @phoog If the quantity of goods and services in the economy is growing, the monetary supply can be safely increased without causing a proportional price inflation (increasing both M and Q satisfies the monetary exchange equation MV=PQ without increasing P). | |
| Nov 11, 2017 at 15:32 | history | edited | RobertF | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Nov 11, 2017 at 15:13 | comment | added | phoog | Increasing the money supply generally reduces the value of money (a classic example of the law of supply and demand). This is a common cause of price inflation. | |
| Nov 11, 2017 at 15:13 | history | closed |
Be Brave Be Like Ukraine Philipp♦ |
Duplicate of Implications of governments borrowing from a central bank rather than issuing money directly | |
| Nov 11, 2017 at 14:03 | review | First posts | |||
| Nov 11, 2017 at 14:56 | |||||
| Nov 11, 2017 at 14:01 | history | asked | RobertF | CC BY-SA 3.0 |