When Milton Friedman, the economist. referred to Helicopter money, he was sarcastically making a point about creating money from thin air and giving it to everyone. He never once proposed or recommended it as a solution to real economic problems. Now it is happening! And touted as a solution to America’s problems.
The money the Federal Reserve and the Treasury is creating and sending is not free, every citizen pays for it with their loss of purchasing power. It is much cheaper and efficient to pay for stimulus thru taxes, spending cuts or savings. But America has or does none of these. We have no savings instead 24 trillion in debt, we had a massive tax cut in 2018 without a balanced budget, and we have increased the cost and size of government.
2019 the US ran a 1 trillion dollar budget deficit while the economy was humming along. 2020 will come in much further in the red ink, consequently 1 trillion plus 2.2 trillion Stimulus plus the loss of tax revenue from this corona virus induced economic full stop. 2018 the US Treasury collected about 3.33 trillion. Cut that in half or who knows, the CARES Stimulus act has 4 more trillion in tax breaks and write offs, and 2020 will come in at 4-6 trillion deficit. Total US GDP is only 15 trillion. In the past china, japan and other nations bought our debt in form of Treasury bonds etc. Now these nations need their own savings to get their country thru this crisis, which leaves only the Federal Reserve to buy up all this debt.
Just this weekend the Fed announced on 60 minutes, that it will buy up Government debt, corporate debt and municipal debt in any amount necessary. And print as much money as necessary. This is an open invitation for all governments around the world to cash in or not renew their US Treasury Bonds. America always did do things bigger and better, well we succeeded, we are the biggest debtor nation and this time it will trash the Dollar, might want to consider buying a chunk of Gold with your stimulus, because the dollar bill soon won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on.
