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Citi's Buiter On Plan Z: Unleash The Helicopter Money
All is (once again) failing. What to do? Much more of the same of course. Only this time whip out the nuclear option: the Helicopter Money Drop. This is the logical next step that Citigroup's Willen Buiter sees as "Central Banks should also engage in 'helicopter money drops' to stimulate effective demand" - temporary tax cuts, increases in transfer payments, or boosts to exhaustive public spending - all financed directly by the willing central bank accomplice in the monetization gambit. In his words: "This will always be effective if it is implemented on a sufficient scale." It is not difficult to implement, would likely be politically popular (nom, nom, nom, more iPads), and in his mind need not become inflationary. He does come down to earth a little though from this likely-endgame scenario noting that "helicopter money is not [however] a solution to fiscal unsustainability." It is just a means of providing a temporary fiscal stimulus without adding to the stock of interest-bearing, redeemable public debt. Any attempt to permanently finance even rather small (permanent) general government deficits (as a share of GDP) by creating additional base money would soon – once inflation expectations adjust to this extreme fiscal dominance regime - give rise to unacceptably high rates of inflation and even hyperinflation. His estimate of the size of this one-off helicopter drop - beyond which these inflation fears may appear - is around 2% of GDP - hardly the stuff of Keynes-/Koo-ian wet dreams. The fact that this is being discussed as a possibility (and was likely always the end-game) by a somewhat mainstream economist should be shocking as perhaps this surreality is nearer than many would like to imagine.
Citigroup's Willen Buiter: Helicopter Money
In cooperation with the fiscal authorities, the central bank can engage in helicopter money drops, as described by Milton Friedman (1969, p. 4). This is a temporary tax cut, increase in transfer payments or boost to exhaustive public spending (including infrastructure investment), financed through a permanent increase in the monetary base. This will always be effective if it is implemented on a sufficient scale. Consider the thought experiment where the Chancellor of the Exchequer sends a £1000 cheque to every man, woman and child in the UK and funds this by borrowing from the Bank of England, which monetises the debt and commits not to reverse this ever. Now consider the following negative economic environment: the British public has become Teutonic in its attitudes towards thrift or caution and decides to save the entire windfall. The solution is simple. Repeat the exercise with a £10,000 cheque for one and all and keep going adding zeros until the consumer cries uncle and starts spending. Ben Bernanke (2002), citing Milton Friedman’s original helicopter money drop parable, listed helicopter money drops (aka money-financed tax cuts) as one of the options open to the monetary authorities at the zero lower bound – as any well-informed monetary economist would have done. He was riled with the epithet “Helicopter Ben” as a result, and has not discussed the merits of the proposal since then, unfortunately.
...It may well be the most effective form of stimulus currently, in particular if directed towards public investment which has taken the brunt of public spending cuts in those countries that have begun fiscal consolidation in earnest (i.e. not the federal government of US or Japan). If the helicopter money were at the pure discretion of the central bank (it could simply say ‘no’), it need not imply weaker incentives for governments to manage their own finances prudently.
...A helicopter money drop is not difficult to implement. It would most likely be politically popular. It just requires cooperation between the central bank and the Treasury. In the US and the UK, helicopter money may in fact turn out to be the true face of the QE we are supposed to have seen these past years. If the asset purchases and monetisation are not reversed at some point in the future, QE will turn out to have been helicopter money after all, if either it brought down government borrowing rates in the primary and secondary markets or if it just provided a subsidy to government funding in the primary markets. Unless the central bank makes a credible non-reversal commitment today, however, the asset purchases and monetisation may be interpreted as temporary – as QE - and their effectiveness therefore less than would have been the case had it been recognised for what it is (or may be) – helicopter money.
Helicopter money, even in huge amounts, need not become inflationary ever. The increase in the government deficit associated with the fiscal stimulus is temporary because the fiscal stimulus is temporary. The associated increase in the size of the central bank’s balance sheet may be large, but it is finite. As long as the current quasi-liquidity trap, high leverage for sovereigns, banks and households endure, much of the money transferred to households (should they be the primary beneficiaries of the helicopter money drop) could well be saved by households, to be deposited in banks who add it to their excess reserves. Should consumers get their confidence back and decide to spend the part of the helicopter money drops they initially saved, fiscal tightening is the solution. Should banks get their confidence back and decide to push their excess liquidity towards the private sector by offering loans on irresistible terms, any inflationary increase impact of the enlarged stock of base money on the stock of bank credit or broad money can be neutralised either by raising bank reserve requirements, or by raising the remuneration rate on excess reserves held by banks with the central bank to levels that would induce banks to keep their money at the central bank rather than lend it out to the private sector.
In Japan and in the euro area, central bank independence tends to be interpreted by the central banks as not answering the telephone when the fiscal authorities call. Such a rejection of cooperation between monetary and fiscal authorities and of coordination between monetary and fiscal policies reflects an elementary but damaging misunderstanding of the meaning of independence, in our opinion. If an escape from this self-imposed state of impotence is deemed to require an amendment of the Bank of Japan Law and of the European Treaties, then we would encourage it. We actually believe that the European Treaties, including Article 123, permit the funding of sovereigns by the ECB and the national central banks in the secondary sovereign debt markets. That’s good enough to make helicopter money drops feasible even in Euroland. In any case, good monetary and fiscal policy should not be blocked or inhibited by a blanket or even a partial prohibition of the monetisation of public debt and deficits. If done properly, and subject to the consent of the monetary authority, a monetary authority which we can presume to take its price stability mandate seriously, it would not cause inflation. Instead, we think it would help prevent inflation falling below the level deemed consistent with price stability in the medium term, or even deflation, and the risk of recession or even depression.
Finally, helicopter money is not a solution to fiscal unsustainability. It is just a means of providing a temporary fiscal stimulus without adding to the stock of interest-bearing, redeemable public debt. Any attempt to permanently finance even rather small (permanent) general government deficits (as a share of GDP) by creating additional base money would soon – once inflation expectations adjust to this extreme fiscal dominance regime - give rise to unacceptably high rates of inflation and even hyperinflation. Our estimates of the maximum general government deficit for the euro area and the US that can be financed without a surging rate of inflation are around 2% of GDP at most – hardly the stuff of which permanent monetisation dreams are made. Although unanticipated inflation can reduce and, at the extreme, wipe out the real NPV of servicing a given stock of domestic currency debt, once inflation becomes embedded in expectations, the ability to extract additional real resources through the anticipated inflation tax is very limited.
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Need a real antidote? Then support Dr. Ron Paul.
Ron Paul on Gold Standard vs Paper Money Moral Hazard:
http://www.planbeconomics.com/2012/04/24/ron-paul-on-gold-standard-paper-money-moral-hazard/
Fuck yeah, bitchez, helicopter money time! Keep the gold under wraps until the meltdown occurs!
Fukushima Sam
"Keep the gold under wraps until the meltdown occurs!"
Do you live in Utah? Maybe some RPG world?
After the crash bottle caps may be just as valid a currency as Gold.
Whatever...money is what the sovereign's guns and courts say the money is...this won't change (only the sovereign may change).
Until you try to pay the police and army with bottlecaps.
Water,food,ammo,gold and silver,then bottlecaps.
Hope you've got a lot of bottlecaps, how many to the ton ?
How manys tons=water and one meal ?
Good luck with that.
canning jar lids might be a better investment than already-used bottle caps.
Gully Foul, just because an episode of Duck Tales had some indigenous people go money crazy over Scrooge's bottle caps doesn't mean that real life will work that way. Don't you remember the moral of that one? He dumped a plane load of bottle caps on them and devalued the currency. Nobody wants bottle caps except maybe you and people who just figured out how to make a wheel.
You can keep your bottle caps. Buckets of food and bullets are in my barter bank (no counterparty risk).
Money is what the people say is money, there is no stopping the return of precious metals as currency and anyone not paying attention is missing the opportunity to enter the next paradigm very well off.
P.S. bottle caps don't have intrinsic value...
Awful idea. Frought with enexpected consequences.
This will end up like, well.... the Helicopter Frozen Turkey drop episode on "WKRP in Cincinnati" (one of the all-time great episodes of any sit com)
"As God is my witness, I though turkeys could fly!"
I'm sure you're right, Gully, gold will never be valuable again! That and ammo and food. Those will never be valuable either. I'd better liquidate now while I still can! Thank you for opening my eyes, sir! ZH I'm outta here, you people are nutz!
I hope The Bernank stretches the rubber band a little further so it hurts a lot more when it snaps.
Gully Fool,I thought they did not come any dumber than Mitt romney,then you opened your mouth.
"After the crash, <strike>bottle caps</strike> Canning lids may be just as valid a currency as Gold."
Fixed that for you!
Google reusable canning lids - for those that haven't canned lately, lids are usable once - reusable lids cost more but can used for years.
This is the fiat currency equivalent of alchemy and turning lead into gold. They will turn linen and paper into real value.
Yup...and pensions into ashes nearly instantly. Nobody can move the interest rate because if they do their debt obligations eat them alive. So the helicopter drops the money bomb...zimbamwe time.
Alternatively market drops like a stone and margin bubbles pop all the way back to 1978 and pension values are reduced to the investment values.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. At this point bull or bear, completely fucked binary sum game situation. Either option results in the destruction of value because of more worthless capital by proxy every credit market as well.
This is the fiat currency equivalent of alchemy and turning lead into gold. They will turn linen and paper into real value.
I'm voting for Paul even if I have to write him in.
I HOPE he decides to break away to a third party and let the others shit themselves.
Reverting to the gold standard will cause a huge contraction (and starvation)
And staying on the current path will eventually create an even larger starvation and contraction, worldwide revolutions, wars, and a dawning of a new dark age.
if by 'gold standard' you mean that in which the government tells people how much gold is worth...I agree...didn't work before and will not even be tried again.
Can Uncle Ben please make it rain so the party can start???
Ben give me money. I will pay off all my debt, promise.
Don't you get it. That's a form of saving... the exact opposite of what he wants you to do.
He wants you to SPEND the money, and borrow some more when you run out of that. He has plenty more. Be happy!!!! Don't worry!!!
Saving, AKA "hoarding" is the root of all evil, and the cause of our economic crisis!
Sheesh! Zero interest rates haven't gotten people to spend us out of this mess, so now they're going to have to do the darn helicopter drop.
When's that election anyway?
Notional GDP targetting. End of story. 'Boom' times are ahead.
Is that sarcasm?
Dead serious.
you're the pope!
Do I hear the whine of turbines?
I can hear the rotors starting to turn.
QE...QE...QE...QE...QE...QE...
drop us shares of FB
Just a one off event... Just once... Than we'll stop... Promise.... Pinky swear...
Na, That was me. I just fucking farted
"get to da choppa"
Speaking of helicopter money (ie Obamabucks), in other off-topic, but not so off-topic news:
Cue up the printing press, there's an election to be won!
Moneyswirth
Too bad for them, if their loans were Robo signed w/ SChityBank, they could have lowered their purchase prices up to $150,000........................Handed over FREE.
I cannot fathom a tax cut on Prop taxes, and a lowered pricipal pmt, if my home was given a 150k freebie.................what a Country.
What a BANK!!!!!!!!!..............WOW!!!
(trying to get real SIGNED contracts this is bait.
LOL
Unemployed and underemployed cannot pay any note at any price.
Unemployed and underemployed cannot pay any note at any price.
They dont have to.
If they are in Robo signed mansions, their living there free already for 2-3 yrs.
They tried to give money to corporations and it didn't work out. The next step is to give money to people to stimulate the demand.
This will not work as well. The money will go into consumer products which are made in China. It will be straight pass through to Chinese. I am sure the goverment of China is already sending their lobbyist to Washington DC to support this idea.
Demand is dead for other reasons that economists like Krugman or politicians just cannot understand.
Ron Paul 2012.
Or into deleveraging. That's where I'd put it. Oh, and grub, gold, and guns.
Ben's idea of a money drop is a bit one-sided. He keeps damn thing hovering over Wall Street.
Bingo!
should I paint a bulls-eye on the roof or build a landing pad?
But the Chinese will then take that money and buy UST. Basically, this plan lets citizens replace the Primary Dealers in the QE model. Which would you rather have, an iPad, or what you get when the Fed does QE and the bankers get bonuses?
Plus, it helps get Obama re-elected, and it gives people choices on what trinkets they will buy. win-win-win! Except the stimulus cards will have to be run through Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, et al to ensure they get their slice of the pie, or it wouldn't be fair!
Yes we can!
And then we can change our currency and do it all over again and evwy one will be happy.
i READ SOMEWHERE THAT CLUNKERS FOR CASH IDEA came from the Chinese embassy in Washington.They needed the steel.
I have my bushels ready to scoop up the helicopter money from my lawn.
I will take it immediately to the gold shop to buy more gold.
Unleash the Fraken Kraken!
dear god,
please let ben printer remain in good condition and allow ben to not change his mind
please let this charade go on for another year....another year where we may all stack, save, prep and be silently amused when our friends, family and neibours thingk we are all nuts.
amen
Except for the obvious trolls (HammyWanger, MillionDollarBlowJob, DrBendOver) there are a great group of people here on ZH; some really imaginative, intellegent people and I don't have to read more than 2 or 3 articles to laugh my gut out.
On a serious note, this is my nightly prayer, 'Just 1 more year' - 'cus I feel it deep in my bones that some serious shit is coming.
And my wife is either going to have me committed to a mental hospital, or, OR, she'll have me sainted for building one of the best prepped Arks 2nd only to Noah's.
Just 1 more year - then bring on the rain and the floods.
Semper Paratus, The Navigator
Reminds me of Bush tax rebates... Clearly not enough.
Instead of a money drop, how about a duce drop.
Sounds like he is throwing his hat in the ring to be next Fed Chief. Also, sounds like the kind of noises a 63 year old would spew as he would rather not see the world end and his favorite golf courses close..
We're all going to be millionaires! W00t!
Zimbabwe all up in this bitch!
Post of the day, sir!
Mugabe for Fed Chair!
Was at the local coin shop today buying some small stacks and saw the Zim 100 Trillion on sale for $7.50.
Just in case of USD failure, I bought several 100 stacks of these on ebay for $150/each stack ($1.50 each) several years ago.
Actually bought them to give away as gifts/gags to tell the inflation story to friends and hopefully alert them to possibilities.
But now, you never know, why bother printing a US 100 Trillion note when we could just adopt Zimbabwes. Front run that cocksucker Ben.
So why does the consumer eventually cry uncle?
Easy: they just inflated his savings away and threaten to do more of it in the future. And that is a solution for which problem?
what savings?
The helicopter is actually a ROFLcopter.....and it's not Plan Z.
Plan Z is killing off the 99%.
Do you think Ben plays this when he runs his CTRL+P program?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHnA94-hTC8
no
i think Ben is more The Impossible Dream...watch as his printers gets faster and faster....
http://youtu.be/fB_1gPRCLCo
No, I don't.
Pandemic 2: the Plan Z simulator
http://www.crazymonkeygames.com/fullscreen.php?game=pandemic-2
Dear Chairsatan, please hold off on your launch until I get a chance to make it to the coin shop and the gun store.
Thanks, e_
Dear Chairsatan, please hold off on your launch until I get a chance to make it to the coin shop and the gun store.
Thanks, e_
Dude, if you haven't made it both numerous times, your in for a RUDE awakening.
I just wanted to top off.
It's Christmas buying season in May (or whenever silver goes to $29.25) - and my favorite Xmas gift recipient is.......... ME!!!
Like the Mogambo Guru used to say "Whee..... this investing stuff is easy"
I miss the Mogambo Guru and hope he's on his beach sipping Mai Tai's - He was predicting this long before silver hit $10
This putz Buiter has been a complete fucking moron for a long time now. What a douche.
Should I just stand out in the yard and wave my arms?
Long TXT bitchez!
A close friend of mine called me yesterday to complain about his rising health care costs... I had to listen to his 30 minute rant about how everything is corrupt and how pissed he was...
His premium went from $270 to $360 and the state approved the increase...
I did a quick google search and found that the CEO made $102 MILLION in BONUS MONEY in 2009 and for 2011 he will receive a 24% INCREASE in his bonus from last year...
http://ctwatchdog.com/health/102-million-payout-to-united-healthcare-ceo-draws-outrage
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/industries/insurer-unitedhealths-ceo-compensation-grows-24-percent-in-2011/2012/04/26/gIQAvTYmjT_story.html
Well guys... he is switching providers and will launch a viral compaign to call out these fuckers...
Three years ago my Cigna plan paid 100% for almost everything. Two years ago that changed to 90%. One year ago it was 80%. Now it is 80% with a 2500 deductible. Seriously, WTF? I have four children and a wife with major medical problems, so I'll take what I can get. To the government: eff you for messing with my insurance company to raise their costs, which of course raised mine. /rude
Medical Control, Medical Corruption
Then the council's secretary N.P. Colwell helped plan (and some say write) the famous 1910 report by Abraham Flexner. Flexner, the owner of a bankrupt prep school, had the good fortune to have a brother, Simon, who was director of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. At his brother's suggestion, Abraham Flexner was hired by the Rockefeller-allied Carnegie Foundation so that the report would not be seen as a Rockefeller initiative. And Carnegie, whose main goal was to "rationalize" higher education, that is, replace religion with science, saw the AMA cartelization drive as useful. Claiming to have investigated nearly every school in the country, Flexner rated them on suitability. Schools he praised received lush grants from the Rockefeller and associated foundations, and almost all the medical schools he condemned were shut down, especially the "commercial" institutions. AMA-dominated state medical boards ruled that in order to practice medicine, a doctor had to graduate from an approved school. Post-Flexner, a school could not be approved if it taught alternative therapies, didn't restrict the number of students, or made profits based on student fees.
Why the opposition to for-profit schools? If an institution were supported by student fees rather than philanthropic donations, it could be independent of the foundations. The Rockefeller family had invested heavily in allopathic drug companies and wanted doctors to use their products.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/medical.html
What's the problem?
Debt.
What is your proposed solution?
More Debt.
Actually, I think the proposed solution with the helicopter money is to put more money into circulation without increasing the total amount of debt. We'll grow (code for "inflate") our way out of this crisis!
Yes, this new proposal is radical and potentially destablizing...I, of course, approve
<incessant cackling>
Is this guy actually suggesting that money be given to the middleclass and not allowed to trickle down from the top? He'll never get a decent Tee-off time again.
100 stacks of 100s please.
BTFD
Did so at $29.25 - not alot, but working on filling number "x" pelican box - pelican boxes cost a bit but stack well in a rifle safe, water tight, handle won't break carrying 100+ pounds.
Damn good advice TWT, buy the fucking dip - the world has gone mad and the insane Central Bankers will out-print Zimbabwe's central bank governor Gono making him look like an amateur.
One day, we'll look back at gold for $1,550/oz and silver at $29.25/oz and wonder WTF we were thinking, not trading in everything to buy real assets when everything else was falling in price.
Could be wrong, and Mileage May Vary - do your own research and bet on yourself.
If they're going to go full retard... Take the average debt load per household and send every household a check for that amount... on one condition, that those households that are in a net deficit position must use the windfall to pay down / pay off the debt. At least this way the prudent are not rElatively punished.
That would suck for me.. I'm prudent, and solvent..
Dead but Stable
Strawberry fields forever............
The Egyptians put everyone to work constructing pyramids. Damn things just sat there after that, though.
We could work on evacuated tube transport on an intercontinental basis.
We could begin to exploit outer space.
But what I think is going to happen is the usual: War.
If humans were ever able to escape Earth the demigods wouldn't be able to assert their complete control over all of humanity. Best to squash manned space technology early and hard.
Anybody got a 3X printer ETF out there?
Too much to print, and not a big enough helicopter either. The FED just wires around money that hasn't even been created yet, to their buddies. Maybe we should all get dual citizenship like Michele Bachmann.
It is always wise to take advice from someone who works for an instiutution which four years after the blow-up and after having received several hundreds of billions in bailouts and Fed giveaways and while still on the Fed gravy traini remains the only major TBTF unable to pass the easiest stress test ever divised just three months ago.
REITS are up again today. Man, that's some funny shit right there. I don't care who you are.
Somebody is pretty damn serious about keeping those POS stocks up in the stratosphere.
I believe it is easier to stimulate the clitoris of a 75 year old prostitute with 55 year work experience than this economy with money bombs.
"What about a kiss, boy?"
LOL - BRILLIANT!!!
Disney Dollars!
In your thought experiement there were no restrictions on how the Peoples Bailout could be spent. A rule that first funds had to be used to repay debt, and the rest, on a debit card, has to be spent in a certain time period would fix that. No savings allowed.
"the British public has become Teutonic in its attitudes towards thrift or caution and decides to save the entire windfall."
Or you issue the money with a negative interest rate on it; you have a card with $1000, but after one week, whatever is left on that card loses 10 percent. repeat each week until the card has $0 on it.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that policy has been in place since around 1913.
Fuel the chopper : check!
Load up the money: check!
Start theme song: check!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBd6ighzqYA&sns=em
START!!!!
I LIKE THE WAY YOU MOVE! Tatatata ta tatata ta!
But........take your time on the Pri-Fly Bennie! Don't rush!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3idQKi5EqM
LOL @ Airwolf.
Can you say "International Money Speculators" like Nixon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRzr1QU6K1o
This speech is just surreal given what has happened.
Sell your gold if you need money. No need for QE. Gold is losing value faster than the euro these days.
And for those who don't make the difference between a fact and opinion check out charts about the euro and gold since the beginning of the year.
Keep hope alive, brother.
Do you understand correction vs secular bull market?
"No need for QE" is like saying "Bernanke will be able to stop printing and everything will be just fine" do you really believe this? If so I have a bridge to sell you.
My point was that banks don't need another round of QE as they are selling gold. Why do you think gold is crashing faster than the euro when the euro might not finish the year?
It's time to get real folks. Don't be like Bernanke when he said that house prices couldn't go down across the country.
I'm not buying gold right now but not expecting a big crash. I think it is close to the bottom for this year.
Print baby print
this would be Golden !
OK, so now we know why they've been smacking down Gold and Silver non-stop for the past 2 months. When the Gold price goes back to $1900/oz the day after they announce this plan, they can say "it's not a big deal".
The people? What about the bankers?
Nobody ever thinks of those poor dudes sweating it out for pennies.
The coin shop is a callin', my fiat keeps on fallin' .My garments keep gettin' fatter, with shiny metal clatter.
Benny's gonna do it, He'll print 10 trillion units,... till the Barbarians expose warrens tunic...
Uncle ron and Mr.T keep smackin'..
"Haters keep on hatin', Stackers keep on stackin'"*
*credit FUU
I hope this isn't a trial balloon. If it follows that all the printing is not inflationary, then perhaps he can explain why the price of almost everything is skyrocketing?
My brother in law is the Director of Finance at Microsoft. The state is in the process of tolling the 520 bridge across Lake Washington. Do you think he gives a shit at the "skyrocketing" cost of travelling in to Seattle?
does he like purple prose? I could sell him my book! Microsoft...has two names..micro and soft...My book is macro and hard! It has to be its about the Crusades! But sometimes opposites attract. You kno...Marilyn and Arthur Hitman...So who knows life is full of surprises. I'm not a microsoft man but I'd love to sell a 'chef d'oeuvre' to one of them, all tongue and no cheek! Like Einstoned dead!
Your's so funny. +1
And immediatley the cost of milk goes to $50/gal
Helicopter drop of 2% of GDP? That's $300 billion. The market would guffaw at that. The US Government pisses away more in two months. This is the most timid "Helicopter Drop" that I've heard since 2008. This guy is practically a sound money advocate.
But remember, govt lies - when they say 2% or $300 Billion, they always come back later (when you disremember) and say "no no, we said 20% or $3Trillion, you just disremembered".
And nobody remembers.
Does anyone remember the $2.3 trillion lost being investigated in 'that part of the Pentagon' (that got vaporized during 9/11) - 11 years ago, no one remembers.
Meantime, we are getting fucked up the ass by some really big fucking numbers.
Am I surprised? Nope. This line of thought is precisely why people like me own physical gold and silver, as well as guns and ammunition.
Ben ordered 10 choppers but they delivered 10 slap chops,, we are screwed.
Remember in 2008 when bush gave everyone that $600 stimulus check and all the economist complained that it was spent deleveraging? Pretty funny looking back on it now.
I say, if we're gonna go out, why not have one last blowout. Sounds like a good plan, and I can probably spend some of this on silver.
These band-aid solutions feel great when first applied (along with lots of QE salve), but when you gotta rip the band-aid off - it really hurts!
"The increase in the government deficit associated with the fiscal stimulus is temporary because the fiscal stimulus is temporary."
FULL STOP.
The fiscal stimulus is never temporary.
Helicopter or refurbished B52 fleets. The money returns directly to the banks, and we are where we were. The private and household debt levels are too high, and money handed out does not help any more.
Already said here in different forms: every dollar more is a lesser dollar all round. Numerical dollar growth is not real growth. Hark Hear the roters roar.
What these guys never address is that all that public investment goes to Asia in the form of product and the middle east for energy. The nature of the US economy is such that everything bleeds out. When Friedman and co theorized these ideas these economies actually made products and citizens bought them. I'm not saying the whole thing isn't conceptually flawed, but they don't even recognize this obvious fact.
Buying gold is so uncivilised and barbaric. The only people that buy gold do it for tradition or are repressed Jews in 1939 that sow it into there garments some have it put in there teeth but that's about it,
Civilised people throw fiat money out of choppers that is real progression
In fact as the world implodes due to trillions of printed fiat currency the best thing is to liquidate all you gold and buy 30 year T.Bonds at real adjusted coupon rate of -5% .
Sarc off /
"Short term fiscal stimulus", aka, methadone for the credit addicted and solvency challenged.
remember in early 2009 a Bill to Audit The Fed started to get taled about, and what followed in March...could be a repeat in progress, especially think possible because its being Kept Off the Newz
proposals-to-reform-or-abolish-federal-reserve
http://www.dailypaul.com/230864/ron-paul-subcommittee-to-examine-proposals-to-reform-or-abolish-federal-reserve
The six proposals that will be discussed by the Subcommittee on Tuesday are:
The Subcommittee’s hearing will take place on Tuesday, May 8 at 10 a.m. in room 2128 Rayburn House Office Building.
So what is the Trend Line on the Velocity of Money Graph?
Ya can't push a string.
Buiter just got added to my 'no trial; straight to execution' list.
get out the hard hats
..
we want helicopter
gold and silver
maybe an occasional walrus or two...
US will never be Weimar. Why? We're not German. Anglo society has always veered toward austerity and frugality in the face of economic hardship. History is a better indicator in this case than anything else
Yep, those Germans have always been known as a bunch of free spending, irresponsible layabouts.
Fuck off Troll - you cheap-ass pathetic Bull Shit don't sell here.
Guess it'over
call it a day
sorry that it had to end this way
no reason to pretend
we knew it had to end
someday
someway
Crash the stock and commodities markets and raise taxes. However much money gets lost in the markets or raised by taxes, print it up and hand it out for immediate expenditure.
IF..... I say IF ZeroHedge was as accurate as it likes to portray itself, and not the tree clubhouse for gold whoring, instead of showing a helicopter dropping money there would be a caricature of Bernanke putting money into a vacuum tube going directly to broker/dealers.
"In cooperation with the fiscal authorities, the central bank can engage in helicopter money drops"
Buiter: "Just be sure to make drops near the residences of bankers and the select few that make up the financial elite. We'll make good use of the that money by doing God's work!"
It's magic! --Keynes
temporary tax cuts, increases in transfer payments, or boosts to exhaustive public spending
Why not simply buy up Credit Card Receivables and cancel them ? Then have an interest rate cap on Consumer Credit to encourage better lending practices
No need to fear Helicopter Ben if you live in New York, because the bloomburgler bought up an entire arsenal of anti-aircraft equipment after 9/11 , we got helicopters with sidewinders and gatling guns mounted up here in the big apple.... no way in hell a "helicopter ben attack" would ever get through.