Timeline for Can the U.S. government cut a check to taxpayers by printing more money?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
14 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 17, 2020 at 9:20 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
Commonmark migration
|
|
| Nov 16, 2017 at 8:44 | comment | added | Royal Canadian Bandit | The inflation rate in the USA in 2016 was 1.3%; so quantitative easing under Obama clearly was not triggering hyperinflation. (An example of actual hyperinflation occurred in Zimbabwe in the early 2000s, with inflation estimated at 79.6 billion percent.) | |
| Nov 15, 2017 at 20:36 | comment | added | Machavity | @JDoe It's true from the dollar perspective (Wikipedia lists all the modern instances of QE). I don't know from a GDP perspective | |
| Nov 15, 2017 at 20:30 | comment | added | J Doe | So "the largest expansion from any economic stimulus program in history" is a deceptive statement, since percentage of GDP is what really matters? | |
| Nov 15, 2017 at 20:27 | comment | added | Machavity | @JDoe The US gross domestic product is about $18T. So $2T spread out over several years was a small percentage of the overall economy. This Economics.SE question talks a bit about it. I think asking this on point over there would be a solid question | |
| Nov 15, 2017 at 20:20 | comment | added | J Doe | If printing money causes inflation, why didn't the largest money supply expansion in history cause any inflation? | |
| Nov 14, 2017 at 17:20 | vote | accept | RobertF | ||
| Nov 14, 2017 at 17:20 | comment | added | RobertF | Ok - although it's funny how the Government continues the fiction of "buying" bonds or using terms like "quantitative easing" when we all know what's going on. It seems like a bit of a con to avoid stoking fears of inflation or lack of confidence in the dollar's value. If Bush had explicitly made the public statement "We're going to print $500 billion and then mail it to taxpayers", I wonder how the markets would have reacted. :-) | |
| Nov 14, 2017 at 16:36 | comment | added | Machavity | @RobertF They came from the Treasury. If you buy bonds, that's where the money goes into. So the Government would "buy" bonds to supply the Treasury with money, and then the Treasury could cut checks via the IRS system and send them to taxpayers (or anyone else in theory) | |
| Nov 14, 2017 at 15:54 | comment | added | RobertF | Were the 2001 tax rebate checks funded from President Bush's $1.35 trillion tax cut program, or did the Treasury Dept. "roll the printing presses" and create money from thin air? I suspect the books were balanced by collecting less tax revenue equal to the total tax rebates. | |
| Nov 14, 2017 at 15:16 | comment | added | Machavity | @RobertF Yes. We already do that via various social programs like SNAP and Social Security. In fact, President Bush got tax rebates sent to households that had paid tax | |
| Nov 14, 2017 at 15:06 | comment | added | RobertF | This is a good summary of monetary policy - but can the government skip the middle man (banks) and directly mail checks to households rather than increasing credit to bank reserves? | |
| Nov 14, 2017 at 13:37 | history | edited | Machavity | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 557 characters in body
|
| Nov 14, 2017 at 13:30 | history | answered | Machavity | CC BY-SA 3.0 |