6 ms·

Money Creation: 70% in the Last 12mo (Fed, M1, $)

53 points by Firecracker 6y ago

Firecracker 6y ago
Hey HN Friends, I'm posting this because I was shocked when I saw this graph. I hadn't previously appreciated just how much of an unprecedented explosion in the money supply there'd been this year. In particular, it seems to quantify a lot of potential for long run inflation and a very expansionary monetary policy move required to prop up the economy during the pandemic. But I'm not an expert here; I'm hoping we can put our heads together. I'd be very curious to hear general discussion and insights into the dynamics. Let's go, community of systems thinkers :) While the M1 measure of money shows the change most dramatically, other ways of looking at the same data (dollars printed, M2, MZM, etc.) seem to tell the same story. There have also been some news articles written, but I thought that for HN, we'd go directly to the numbers. Thanks for taking a look!
- nabla9 6y ago
  Fed finally changed the long held monetary policy. What do changes in the Fed’s longer-run goals and monetary strategy statement mean? https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/09/02/what-do-changes-in-the-feds-longer-run-goals-and-monetary-strategy-statement-mean/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/09/02/what-do-c... > Previously, the Fed said its definition of price stability was to aim for 2 percent inflation, as measured by the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index. It described that goal as “symmetric,” suggesting that it was equally concerned about inflation falling below or above that target. >In the new version of the statement, the Fed says it “will likely aim to achieve inflation moderately above 2 percent for some time” after periods of persistently low inflation. Fed Chair Jerome Powell called this strategy “a flexible form of average inflation targeting”—which Fed officials are calling FAIT—in an August 2020 speech at the Fed’s Jackson Hole conference. >Average inflation targeting implies that when inflation undershoots the target for a time, then the FOMC will direct monetary policy to push inflation above the target for some time to compensate. With this new approach, the Fed hopes to anchor the expectations of financial markets and others that it can and will do what’s needed to get and maintain inflation at 2 percent on average over time.
- secabeen 6y ago
  One of the angles that I haven't seen discussed yet is that an increase in the money supply is a reasonable response to a significant decrease in the velocity of money. With stores closed, services shuttered and experiences unavailable, people are holding onto money longer, and it's changing hands less. If money is changing hands less (lower velocity) you need more money in the system to enable the same amount of commerce. Once the economy starts back up again, the fed could reduce the money supply in line with the increasing velocity.
  - dnautics 6y ago
    "the fed could reduce the money supply" What is your proposed mechanism for this? On the other hand, inflation is great for shafting the labor class, so at least we're going to put most of the pain on the people who are least capable of retaliating against the government; and they'll blame the rich anyways.
    - thekyle 6y ago
      I believe the idea is to raise interest rates so people will hoard more money reducing the supply in circulation.
      - dnautics 6y ago
        That won't reduce the supply, it will slow the expansion of supply, unless bankruptcies go into a chain reaction.
  - cft 6y ago
    Also how will it extract the money already created from circulation? I find that extremely implausible.
    - jjeaff 6y ago
      The fed doesn't gift money to anyone. To decrease money supply, all they have to do is reduce the amounts of reserves available to banks and sell back the bonds they have been buying feverishly and wait for any remaining loans to come due. Now the government can gift money, but they must either use tax revenues and/or borrow by selling treasury bills - which can be to the public or the fed can buy them - but in either case, they must be paid back.
- paulmendoza 6y ago
  Keep in mind that “inflation” as defined by the fed doesn’t count food, energy and asset prices. Who can live a day without eating food, using energy for driving or powering appliances and finally paying for a place to live. Basically I paid $76 at KFC the other day to feed 6 people. Inflation is here already but it doesn’t show up in the fed numbers.
  - refurb 6y ago
    Keep in mind that “inflation” as defined by the fed doesn’t count food, energy and asset prices. Yes, inflation does count all those things. At least if you regard housing as an asset (inflation of implied rent). I mean the definition is public. Not like anyone is hiding anything. https://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/cpi/ https://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/cpi/
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Keep in mind that “inflation” as defined by the fed There is no such thing; the Fed doesn't define or measure inflation. > doesn’t count food, energy and asset prices. The primary inflation measures from the BLS (the various forms of the CPI) do include the first two things; they don't include asset prices. > Who can live a day without eating food, using energy for driving or powering appliances and finally paying for a place to live. The cost of having a place to live (rent, including imputed rent) is, like food and energy, included in CPI.
nabla9 6y ago
The FRED® Blog What’s behind the recent surge in the M1 money supply? https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2021/01/whats-behind-the-recent-surge-in-the-m1-money-supply/?utm_source=series_page&utm_medium=related_content&utm_term=related_resources&utm_campaign=fredblog https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2021/01/whats-behind-the-rec...
- Firecracker 6y ago
  Indeed! Definitely a good factor to know about, but there's also been a huge surge in things like Monetary Base (currency in circulation+reserves) [0]. Looks to me like there's a lot of (effectively) money printing behind this, not just an artifact of M1's definition? [0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOGMBASE https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOGMBASE
  - jjeaff 6y ago
    Wouldn't that be more likely just a large increase in reserves? We know reserves are higher. There also seems to be a shortage of currency in circulation due to COVID affecting the ability to print new bills as old bills come in.
- jjeaff 6y ago
  tldr, they think a large portion of the growth is due to a regulation change in April that is causing banks to report savings accounts and other similar accounts in a category that is counted as M1. Graphs indicate that M2 growth is more steady, even though M1 is a component of M2. Which indicates that it is basically just being redistributed from M2 to M1.
jasunflower 6y ago
When your only weapon is a printer... I guess they have bonds and interest rates too...
BlueTie 6y ago
Kings used to coin money, hand it out to the army and then collect taxes from the entire population that was paid in the same coin. The Fed creates dollars, hands it out to bankers and then the US gov't collects taxes from the entire population in the same dollars. Same strategy, different masters.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 6y ago
  Continuing the analogy: Those coins used to be pure precious metals but whenever a king needed to coin more moneys than precious metals he could afford, he would engage in "money creation" by turning up the percentage of some non-precious metal. Same strategy, different execution.
- nabla9 6y ago
  There is difference. King wanted the value of money stay stable or increase. Fed wants to reach 2% average inflation target but it keeps failing.
  - colejohnson66 6y ago
    Can someone ELI5 why we want inflation?
    - paulmendoza 6y ago
      Saving is bad because it slows down the economy. We need people spending their dollars. So a little inflations is like grease keeps the economic gears moving.
      - djbebs 6y ago
        Saving is not bad because "it slows the economy". Savings is bad in the views of governments and central banks because it removes their power over money. There is no meaningful practical diference between the fed printing money, and people using their savings in the event of a crisis, but only in the first case does the fed and government have control over it.
swengw 6y ago
does it still look bad if you use a log scale?
- Firecracker 6y ago
  Great question! It does indeed. If you want to see, can click the gear in the upper right on the site. Then format. Then check the log box. No URL scheme, unfortunately, or I'd link it for ya.
corona-research 6y ago
God bless Bitcoin
RGamma 6y ago
Gotta keep those numbers going up, lest you break the illusion that everything's just fine.
rojeee 6y ago
Remember that an increase in M1 doesn't mean "more money for everyone"! It just means more reserves for banks. I think the key thing here is to look at is increase of bank deposits (I.e. money for you and me). That is M2 MINUS central bank reserves and notes and coins in circulation. If you look at this you'll see that bank deposits have only increased modestly despite the large increase in M1. From this you can infer that the FED's "money printing" isn't really affecting Main Street very much. I.e. currently not causing much inflation. What's happening? The FED is creating new reserves and using those to buy bonds. The reserves remain in financial institutions and should incentivise banks to lend - or at least that is the theory. Lending is how bank deposits (money for you and me) are created. The reserves which the FED creates to buy bonds (which are assets of commercial banks) doesn't end up in people's Bank accounts (which are liabilities of commercial banks). Instead, the reserves remain sloshing around in the banks. My view is that money supply is endogenous. That is, new bank deposits are created when new loans are made. Currently, there is not a demand for loans so there won't be a huge increase in the M2 money supply as a result of these FED bond purchases. Perhaps demand might increase in the future, in which case the US will see inflation. I suspect once the economy recovers and inflation (as measured by the FED) increases then they'll start performing open market operations to sell the bonds they bought and thus remove the excess reserves from the financial system.
- Firecracker 6y ago
  Doesn't M1 exclude bank reserves? Edit: Indeed. M1's definition: "M1 includes funds that are readily accessible for spending. M1 consists of: (1) currency outside the U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve Banks, and the vaults of depository institutions; (2) traveler's checks of nonbank issuers; (3) demand deposits; and (4) other checkable deposits (OCDs), which consist primarily of negotiable order of withdrawal (NOW) accounts at depository institutions and credit union share draft accounts. Seasonally adjusted M1 is calculated by summing currency, traveler's checks, demand deposits, and OCDs, each seasonally adjusted separately. I agree with this line of argument for the 2008 era quantitative easing! But my read is that M1 explicitly excludes bank reserves, so the M1 created can't be locked-up reserves, right?
  - 6y ago
Firecracker 6y ago
Looks like the bitcoin comment got killed, but I want to revive an interesting point at the heart of it: Big monetary swings like this do bolster the case for it as an inflation-resistant value store...like gold (or stocks), both of which have risen quite a bit this year.
- simonh 6y ago
  Ive come to regard gold as super-bitcoin. In theory they could be considered similar as value stores and hedges against the economy, but BTC is just way too volatile and unreliable. Maybe in a generation or two things will be different, but at that point do we need both? Right now I'd say gold is much safer, but long term BTC is much more convenient. The comparison reinforces y opinion that BTC, despite it's relative ease of transaction, is more like an asset than it is like money.
ccrolf81 6y ago
Interesting to see there’s no significant drop, historically. That indicates the level will stay this high, it will just increase slower
simonh 6y ago
Re. How M1 is calculated, are traveler's checks really still a thing?

53 points by Firecracker 6y ago

Hey HN Friends, I'm posting this because I was shocked when I saw this graph. I hadn't previously appreciated just how much of an unprecedented explosion in the money supply there'd been this year. In particular, it seems to quantify a lot of potential for long run inflation and a very expansionary monetary policy move required to prop up the economy during the pandemic. But I'm not an expert here; I'm hoping we can put our heads together. I'd be very curious to hear general discussion and insights into the dynamics. Let's go, community of systems thinkers :) While the M1 measure of money shows the change most dramatically, other ways of looking at the same data (dollars printed, M2, MZM, etc.) seem to tell the same story. There have also been some news articles written, but I thought that for HN, we'd go directly to the numbers. Thanks for taking a look!

nabla9 6y ago
Fed finally changed the long held monetary policy. What do changes in the Fed’s longer-run goals and monetary strategy statement mean? https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/09/02/what-do-changes-in-the-feds-longer-run-goals-and-monetary-strategy-statement-mean/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/09/02/what-do-c... > Previously, the Fed said its definition of price stability was to aim for 2 percent inflation, as measured by the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index. It described that goal as “symmetric,” suggesting that it was equally concerned about inflation falling below or above that target. >In the new version of the statement, the Fed says it “will likely aim to achieve inflation moderately above 2 percent for some time” after periods of persistently low inflation. Fed Chair Jerome Powell called this strategy “a flexible form of average inflation targeting”—which Fed officials are calling FAIT—in an August 2020 speech at the Fed’s Jackson Hole conference. >Average inflation targeting implies that when inflation undershoots the target for a time, then the FOMC will direct monetary policy to push inflation above the target for some time to compensate. With this new approach, the Fed hopes to anchor the expectations of financial markets and others that it can and will do what’s needed to get and maintain inflation at 2 percent on average over time.
secabeen 6y ago
One of the angles that I haven't seen discussed yet is that an increase in the money supply is a reasonable response to a significant decrease in the velocity of money. With stores closed, services shuttered and experiences unavailable, people are holding onto money longer, and it's changing hands less. If money is changing hands less (lower velocity) you need more money in the system to enable the same amount of commerce. Once the economy starts back up again, the fed could reduce the money supply in line with the increasing velocity.
- dnautics 6y ago
  "the fed could reduce the money supply" What is your proposed mechanism for this? On the other hand, inflation is great for shafting the labor class, so at least we're going to put most of the pain on the people who are least capable of retaliating against the government; and they'll blame the rich anyways.
  - thekyle 6y ago
    I believe the idea is to raise interest rates so people will hoard more money reducing the supply in circulation.
    - dnautics 6y ago
      That won't reduce the supply, it will slow the expansion of supply, unless bankruptcies go into a chain reaction.
- cft 6y ago
  Also how will it extract the money already created from circulation? I find that extremely implausible.
  - jjeaff 6y ago
    The fed doesn't gift money to anyone. To decrease money supply, all they have to do is reduce the amounts of reserves available to banks and sell back the bonds they have been buying feverishly and wait for any remaining loans to come due. Now the government can gift money, but they must either use tax revenues and/or borrow by selling treasury bills - which can be to the public or the fed can buy them - but in either case, they must be paid back.
paulmendoza 6y ago
Keep in mind that “inflation” as defined by the fed doesn’t count food, energy and asset prices. Who can live a day without eating food, using energy for driving or powering appliances and finally paying for a place to live. Basically I paid $76 at KFC the other day to feed 6 people. Inflation is here already but it doesn’t show up in the fed numbers.
- refurb 6y ago
  Keep in mind that “inflation” as defined by the fed doesn’t count food, energy and asset prices. Yes, inflation does count all those things. At least if you regard housing as an asset (inflation of implied rent). I mean the definition is public. Not like anyone is hiding anything. https://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/cpi/ https://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/cpi/
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Keep in mind that “inflation” as defined by the fed There is no such thing; the Fed doesn't define or measure inflation. > doesn’t count food, energy and asset prices. The primary inflation measures from the BLS (the various forms of the CPI) do include the first two things; they don't include asset prices. > Who can live a day without eating food, using energy for driving or powering appliances and finally paying for a place to live. The cost of having a place to live (rent, including imputed rent) is, like food and energy, included in CPI.

nabla9 6y ago

The FRED® Blog What’s behind the recent surge in the M1 money supply? https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2021/01/whats-behind-the-recent-surge-in-the-m1-money-supply/?utm_source=series_page&utm_medium=related_content&utm_term=related_resources&utm_campaign=fredblog https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2021/01/whats-behind-the-rec...

Firecracker 6y ago
Indeed! Definitely a good factor to know about, but there's also been a huge surge in things like Monetary Base (currency in circulation+reserves) [0]. Looks to me like there's a lot of (effectively) money printing behind this, not just an artifact of M1's definition? [0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOGMBASE https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOGMBASE
- jjeaff 6y ago
  Wouldn't that be more likely just a large increase in reserves? We know reserves are higher. There also seems to be a shortage of currency in circulation due to COVID affecting the ability to print new bills as old bills come in.
jjeaff 6y ago
tldr, they think a large portion of the growth is due to a regulation change in April that is causing banks to report savings accounts and other similar accounts in a category that is counted as M1. Graphs indicate that M2 growth is more steady, even though M1 is a component of M2. Which indicates that it is basically just being redistributed from M2 to M1.

jasunflower 6y ago

When your only weapon is a printer... I guess they have bonds and interest rates too...

BlueTie 6y ago

Kings used to coin money, hand it out to the army and then collect taxes from the entire population that was paid in the same coin. The Fed creates dollars, hands it out to bankers and then the US gov't collects taxes from the entire population in the same dollars. Same strategy, different masters.

bitxbitxbitcoin 6y ago
Continuing the analogy: Those coins used to be pure precious metals but whenever a king needed to coin more moneys than precious metals he could afford, he would engage in "money creation" by turning up the percentage of some non-precious metal. Same strategy, different execution.
nabla9 6y ago
There is difference. King wanted the value of money stay stable or increase. Fed wants to reach 2% average inflation target but it keeps failing.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  Can someone ELI5 why we want inflation?
  - paulmendoza 6y ago
    Saving is bad because it slows down the economy. We need people spending their dollars. So a little inflations is like grease keeps the economic gears moving.
    - djbebs 6y ago
      Saving is not bad because "it slows the economy". Savings is bad in the views of governments and central banks because it removes their power over money. There is no meaningful practical diference between the fed printing money, and people using their savings in the event of a crisis, but only in the first case does the fed and government have control over it.

swengw 6y ago

does it still look bad if you use a log scale?

Firecracker 6y ago
Great question! It does indeed. If you want to see, can click the gear in the upper right on the site. Then format. Then check the log box. No URL scheme, unfortunately, or I'd link it for ya.

corona-research 6y ago

God bless Bitcoin

RGamma 6y ago

Gotta keep those numbers going up, lest you break the illusion that everything's just fine.

rojeee 6y ago

Remember that an increase in M1 doesn't mean "more money for everyone"! It just means more reserves for banks. I think the key thing here is to look at is increase of bank deposits (I.e. money for you and me). That is M2 MINUS central bank reserves and notes and coins in circulation. If you look at this you'll see that bank deposits have only increased modestly despite the large increase in M1. From this you can infer that the FED's "money printing" isn't really affecting Main Street very much. I.e. currently not causing much inflation. What's happening? The FED is creating new reserves and using those to buy bonds. The reserves remain in financial institutions and should incentivise banks to lend - or at least that is the theory. Lending is how bank deposits (money for you and me) are created. The reserves which the FED creates to buy bonds (which are assets of commercial banks) doesn't end up in people's Bank accounts (which are liabilities of commercial banks). Instead, the reserves remain sloshing around in the banks. My view is that money supply is endogenous. That is, new bank deposits are created when new loans are made. Currently, there is not a demand for loans so there won't be a huge increase in the M2 money supply as a result of these FED bond purchases. Perhaps demand might increase in the future, in which case the US will see inflation. I suspect once the economy recovers and inflation (as measured by the FED) increases then they'll start performing open market operations to sell the bonds they bought and thus remove the excess reserves from the financial system.

Firecracker 6y ago
Doesn't M1 exclude bank reserves? Edit: Indeed. M1's definition: "M1 includes funds that are readily accessible for spending. M1 consists of: (1) currency outside the U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve Banks, and the vaults of depository institutions; (2) traveler's checks of nonbank issuers; (3) demand deposits; and (4) other checkable deposits (OCDs), which consist primarily of negotiable order of withdrawal (NOW) accounts at depository institutions and credit union share draft accounts. Seasonally adjusted M1 is calculated by summing currency, traveler's checks, demand deposits, and OCDs, each seasonally adjusted separately. I agree with this line of argument for the 2008 era quantitative easing! But my read is that M1 explicitly excludes bank reserves, so the M1 created can't be locked-up reserves, right?
- 6y ago

Firecracker 6y ago

Looks like the bitcoin comment got killed, but I want to revive an interesting point at the heart of it: Big monetary swings like this do bolster the case for it as an inflation-resistant value store...like gold (or stocks), both of which have risen quite a bit this year.

simonh 6y ago
Ive come to regard gold as super-bitcoin. In theory they could be considered similar as value stores and hedges against the economy, but BTC is just way too volatile and unreliable. Maybe in a generation or two things will be different, but at that point do we need both? Right now I'd say gold is much safer, but long term BTC is much more convenient. The comparison reinforces y opinion that BTC, despite it's relative ease of transaction, is more like an asset than it is like money.

ccrolf81 6y ago

Interesting to see there’s no significant drop, historically. That indicates the level will stay this high, it will just increase slower

simonh 6y ago

Re. How M1 is calculated, are traveler's checks really still a thing?