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Only tangentially related but still interesting. This is IMO how most governments will unfortunately implement People QE once negative interests fail and the ne
by Inthenameofmine 10y ago
Only tangentially related but still interesting. This is IMO how most governments will unfortunately implement People QE once negative interests fail and the next crisis comes rolling in.
U think in the last crisis the US already implemented one thing similar called "cash for clunkers".
- hga 10y agoI'm pretty sure Cash for Clunkers was far worse, for it was pure Broken Windows theory of the economy. It not just took those cars off the street, one of the requirements was to destroy the engine.
- Gibbon1 10y agoWould have made more sense for the government to collect the inventory of clunkers and then auction them off in batches once new car sales recovered. Also amusing, okay sort of horrifying, was panicked calls as the housing bubble popped by erstwhile free market types for the government to buy up and bulldoze 'excess housing inventory'
- hga 10y agoWere those "erstwhile free market types" in favor of Clinton using Carter's law to force banks to sell subprime mortgages in the first place? (Something that no friend of the free market George W. Bush thought was just dandy, but at least he didn't say anything as stupid as "I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing." but mistaking markers of the middle class for causes is very very stupid.) Not that that is sufficient an answer, seeing as how many other countries also had property bubbles at the same time. Taking a step or six back, I see it going to the US running a huge deficit and the inevitable consequences of putting that sort of money in motion. In between are things like the IMF's insane response to Indonesia's short term liquidity problem when hot money fled it, which resulted in it's government/strong man being deposed, which the PRC took note of and acted accordingly.