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Yes, it is. There is nothing magic about modern economy, increase supply of something more than there is demand for it and eventually it will lose its relative
by fuoqi 6y ago
Yes, it is. There is nothing magic about modern economy, increase supply of something more than there is demand for it and eventually it will lose its relative value. Many argue that real yield of T-bills is already negative. This is why the Fed has to buy them itself (thus effectively it prints money out of thin air), since there is not enough domestic or foreign investors which are willing to invest into them on such conditions.
I think we don't see big inflation (relative to the amount of the injected money) for two reasons:
- Slow velocity of money due to the effects of the pandemic. It's a temporary effect and we already see raises of oil and steel prices.
- Money distribution. The Fed (and the US government in general) policy mostly benefits the rich. Thus we do see inflation of real estate and financial assets (including cryptocurrencies). It works well for now (well, let's forget about the moral aspect of such policy for now), but such capital is very mobile and it can migrate to other jurisdictions very fast on the very first signs of danger, thus aggravating the situation which has caused this migration even further.
A bigger factor from which the "magic" comes in my opinion is the reserve status of the dollar, highly disproportionate to the global share of the US economy. There are signs that this status gradually being lost, which in 10-20 years probably will lead to big tectonic shifts in the global economy. I think that in 20-30 years, the US economy will be far more "normal" than currently, i.e. it will not be able to exploit the reserve status anymore.