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> the 2020 admin threw more money at the problem than was necessary, and did it in the second form Yes, the Covid stimulus was an experiment in "helicopter mon

> the 2020 admin threw more money at the problem than was necessary, and did it in the second form Yes, the Covid stimulus was an experiment in "helicopter money", with a predictable response in price, especially in light of concurrent supply-chain issues. > it's probably still much better than having thrown too little at the problem would've been No, some interventions leave things worse off than it would have been without. When it comes to the public's money, and truly stupendous amounts of it at 25% of GDP, the bar has to be a lot higher than "eh, probably better". I suppose it's a job for economists and historians in the future to study this, but one wonders if there is some relationship between the amount of Covid stimulus response and the recent inflation, and how persistent it would be in the years to come.

majormajor 3y ago
> No, some interventions leave things worse off than it would have been without. When it comes to the public's money, and truly stupendous amounts of it at 25% of GDP, the bar has to be a lot higher than "eh, probably better". I suppose it's a job for economists and historians in the future to study this, but one wonders if there is some relationship between the amount of Covid stimulus response and the recent inflation, and how persistent it would be in the years to come. Yes, some interventions leave things worse off than without. But with sudden massive unemployment and low savings, why do you think the default hypothesis is "nothing would be better"? You can have both "persistent lingering inflation for several years" AND "still better than the alternative."
- prepend 3y ago
  I don’t think the argument is that nothing should have been done instead of what we did. The argument is that something better should have been done. There are many alternatives and we did one. It’s not like the only options were to drop trillions in cash on people or to do nothing.

majormajor 3y ago

> No, some interventions leave things worse off than it would have been without. When it comes to the public's money, and truly stupendous amounts of it at 25% of GDP, the bar has to be a lot higher than "eh, probably better". I suppose it's a job for economists and historians in the future to study this, but one wonders if there is some relationship between the amount of Covid stimulus response and the recent inflation, and how persistent it would be in the years to come. Yes, some interventions leave things worse off than without. But with sudden massive unemployment and low savings, why do you think the default hypothesis is "nothing would be better"? You can have both "persistent lingering inflation for several years" AND "still better than the alternative."

prepend 3y ago
I don’t think the argument is that nothing should have been done instead of what we did. The argument is that something better should have been done. There are many alternatives and we did one. It’s not like the only options were to drop trillions in cash on people or to do nothing.