I think, someone in the government has figured out that if you simply print money and hand it out to people, a sufficient amount of them will use it to buy stoc

I think, someone in the government has figured out that if you simply print money and hand it out to people, a sufficient amount of them will use it to buy stocks. So, on paper everything looks great: people are receiving stimulus checks, the stock markets go up and nobody ever bothers to look at the monetary supply graphs to see that your $1000 in the bank has lost almost 50% of its value since the beginning of 2020. If you care to define the value as a share of the overall money supply (which does not immediately translate to purchasing power, but will eventually do through supply and demand). In reality, the publicly traded corporations get unprecedented cash flows through stock value increases and low-interest loans, and together with very lax interpretation of antitrust law, can effectively destroy any competing business by subsidizing their offerings through channels that are not available to those who aren't a part of the club. I used to think that we are on a brink of another 2008-like recession, where the stock markets will crash and people will have to rethink what they do with their money. I think, this time it will be different - we may have some years years of roaring stock markets and stagnating wages, where a typical salary will barely cover a room in a shared apartment, followed by a massive civil unrest, where people will get disappointed in the unfair economic system and will proceed to just grab what they can by force. Interesting times we live in. [0] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/money-supply-m0 https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/money-supply-m0