> Printing hundreds of billions of dollars is also inflationary.

They borrow the money, but yes, inflationary is the point of doing it.

Except American was in a structural slump similar to but not quite as bad as japans lost decade which meant that interest rates were stuck as near 0% percent. The inflation caused by Covid actually broke that cycle and American was on a much better path. Go look at articles from the last year of bidens term in the economist and financial times. The US had achieved a soft landing by bringing inflation down to within fed targets while avoiding a recession. We were the envy of the world. Income inequality was reducing, real wages were increasing for the first time in generations and productivity vs wages were converging.

Now we’re back to chaos and inflation and wage stagnation.