> Who would have thought printing Trillions of US dollars for pandemic relief would circulate more money in the market and lead to inflation?! Plenty of folks

> Who would have thought printing Trillions of US dollars for pandemic relief would circulate more money in the market and lead to inflation?! Plenty of folks thought (a) we needed to spend lots of money on relief, (b) this would cause a spike in inflation, and (c) this is fine: * https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/07/opinion/covid-biden-economy-stimulus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/07/opinion/covid-biden-econo... * https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/inflation-fears-and-biden-stimulus-look-korean-war-not-vietnam https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/in... A 12-18 months spike in inflation is worse than the alternative, not spending not enough and the economy stagnate for years like it did post-2008: > I see the following scenario: a weak stimulus plan, perhaps even weaker than what we’re talking about now, is crafted to win those extra GOP votes. The plan limits the rise in unemployment, but things are still pretty bad, with the rate peaking at something like 9 percent and coming down only slowly. And then Mitch McConnell says “See, government spending doesn’t work.” * https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/06/stimulus-arithmetic-wonkish-but-important/ https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/06/stimulus-arithm...