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Comment by bufferoverflow | Hacker News Reader

You don't think printing trillions of dollars at never seen before rates is the inflation driver?

No. And neither do people who have to deal with billions of dollars worth of US bonds, given that 10Y Treasury inflation expectations have peaked and are currently going down:

* https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10YIE

The Market™ (currently) thinks this is transitory. See also 5Y:

* https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T5YIE

Of course the economy is dynamic, so we'll see what happens when things continue to open up as people get vaccinated. Things may have to be slowed down: but a 'too hot' economy is a nice problem to have, versus the alternative of a too slow one where there's lots of people that are unemployed.

Pre-pandemic the US unemployment rate was at 3.5%; it's currently at 5.8%:

* https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE

I wouldn't be surprised that the desire is to get that lower before considering applying the brakes.

So at what point would printing trillions of dollars have an effect? If we just gave everyone 10k a month, would inflation occur then?

> So at what point would printing trillions of dollars have an effect?

For a start, when interest rates are not at (effective) zero:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_lower_bound

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquidity_trap

In an independent, competently run central bank "money printing" generally only occurs during economic disasters, where the first thing that is generally done is that the central bank reserve rate gets cut.

Further, it should also be recognized that 99% of the "money" that is created in modern financial systems is done by private banks when they issue loans:

* https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1905625

There are a bunch of myths about what "money printing" actually is:

* https://www.pragcap.com/everything-wrong-with-the-money-prin...

All the 'printed' money is given directly to corporations. This increases their share price. That's where the inflation is. Asset process

What I figure is the printed money is given to people to buy things. It’s given to him who saved/inherited his money and could’ve bought that thing anyways, and to him who didn’t save/inherit his money and couldn’t. The seller of that thing now has two people competing for it so he can mark up the price further. He makes profit because he owns the capital, the non-saver or non inheritor, gets a good he couldn’t otherwise afford, and the saver is stuck paying a higher price. That saver/inheritor who doesn’t own assets but only has his labor to sell, or his inheritance to spend, is effectively having some of his money taken from him and given to the non-saver and the rich man with capital.

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