> The purpose of stimulus was to prevent those from looking even worse and causing more permanent damage to the economy. In that regard it's been a huge success

> The purpose of stimulus was to prevent those from looking even worse and causing more permanent damage to the economy. In that regard it's been a huge success; somewhere above, Keynes is smiling. In exchange for that we've got only 5%ish inflation, driven partly by a newly-tight labour market in which people can actually negotiate incomes upward, and partly by a big spike in natural gas prices? I would absolutely take it. Me too. I would take that deal again. As I recall, for a few weeks in early-to-mid 2020, the world was in the grip of fear, consumers everywhere had drastically cut their spending, and businesses everywhere were in free fall. Government intervention stopped the free fall. I know of several small and midsize businesses that briefly considered Chapter 11 and of one billionaire who had his lawyers draft personal bankruptcy filings during those few weeks. Every CEO and business founder I know took out a PPP loan -- and no one repaid it. The moment government money started flowing, everyone changed their tune. I'm 100% sure that, had it not been for all that government intervention (fiscal and monetary), we would be in the throes of a horrific Great Depression right now. That said, I think there will likely be two significant costs to all the "mopping up" to be done by central banks (stopping their purchases of government bonds to replace holdings that mature, reducing the pool of capital available for buying government bonds, and raising rates): (1) asset prices are likely to decline, perhaps significantly (that is what has happened in other periods of voluntary/involuntary monetary tightening throughout history), and (2) we will likely have to suffer through a normal recession -- much better than a Great Depression, but still, not fun.