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If Only We’d Kept A Pet Monetarist
We should've left at least one seat at the table for the monetarists.
If we had, we wouldn't be in this inflationary mess. And we wouldn't be hurtling headlong towards a deflationary crash on the other side, either.
So said... I don't know. So said some monetarists somewhere, I imagine.
I've talked a lot about monetarism over the years, and particularly during the pandemic era, when it enjoyed a minor renaissance. The sequencing of events was difficult to ignore. An explosion in money supply
“If you were building a house in 2021, for example, there were entire weeks or even months when no amount of money could secure for you a garage door. There simply were no available garage doors.”
Maybe not a new garage door, but I would have happily parted with my garage door had someone offered me enough.
“Are currants just snobby raisins?” Yes, or perhaps it is more accurate to describe currants as raisins for snobs, my wife loves currants and she is 100% a snob.
The name “currant” just sounds snobby. Whomever first marketed raisins as a foodstuff deserves a ton of plaudits because they are absolutely terrible.
Monetary policy is supposed to have a delayed effect that will take longer this time considering the excess savings and high home equity values.
lest we forget how one senator stood up to prevent an even bigger calamity. the dems originally wanted $13T stimulus bill, then $6T and eventually got more than 3T. Not that his motives were pure or he knew what he was doing. The root of many problems, not just this one, is that politicians are making these decisions and they have no idea what they are doing. Their only concern is about getting re-elected. in reality, why would they care about anything else? Just like everyone else, they want to keep their jobs, status, future prospects or whatever personal and professional goals they desire to achieve.
The running jokes are that communism or socialism or capitalism or democracy will work if only “done right”. The joke is that this is probably true. Any of these systems could work but because human societies are very complicated, none of these systems can ever be “done right”. Compromises are always required and as a society we cannot agree on what these compromises should be. or even have the expertise or knowledge to realistically evaluate the alternatives. and even if we could there is no way to know if it could be implemented in a satisfactory manner.
I hardly think universal preschool or child tax credits would’ve been a calamity. They could’ve done all the things they wanted to do without having a significant inflationary impact if they’d just raise taxes on the upper class. I do appreciate that Manchin represents a deep red state and still went as far as he did, but taxes are the easiest way to negate the wealth effects for the people who consume the most.
I’m still trying to figure out why I didn’t get even one of those thousands of dollars sent to “most” of us. I survived, but a few extra bucks wouldn’t have gone amiss. Oh, and my sister and daughter didn’t get any of this stuff either. We must be on the wrong list.