We Must Have MOAR: Almost Everyone In Washington Seems To Agree That More Free Money Will Fix The Economy
Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,
There seems to be a growing consensus in Washington that the only way to fix the worst economic downturn in more than 70 years is by giving out much more free money. Joe Biden wants more “stimulus”, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wants more “stimulus”, and most members of Congress from both parties want more “stimulus”. Of course none of the previous “stimulus packages” that we spent trillions of dollars on fixed the economy, but they insist that this latest one will finally do the job. In addition to the 1.9 trillion dollar package that Biden has already proposed, Democrats in Congress are now pushing monthly direct payments to parents that have children under the age of 18.
Needless to say, that proposal has overwhelming support among the American people, because direct socialist payments have become wildly popular since they were first introduced last year. But by borrowing and spending so much money, we are literally committing national suicide, but very few people are concerned about that at this point.
Even though the previous round of “stimulus payments” is still being sent out, Biden and his minions can’t wait to start sending out another round.
In fact, Biden insists that we literally “don’t have a second to waste”…
“We don’t have a second to waste when it comes to delivering the American people the relief they desperately need. I’m calling on Congress to act quickly and pass the American Rescue Plan.”
Quite a few independent economists are alarmed by the inflation that previous “stimulus payments” have created, but Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is dismissing those fears.
Instead of focusing on inflation, she says that not sending out more free money would be an even greater risk…
“As treasury secretary, I have to worry about all of the risks to the economy, and the most important risk is that we leave workers and communities scarred by the pandemic and the economic toll that it’s taken, that we don’t do enough to address the pandemic,” Yellen told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
“I’ve spent many years studying inflation and worrying about inflation, and I can tell you, we have the tools to deal with that risk if it materializes,” she continued. “But we face a huge economic challenge here and tremendous suffering in the country. We’ve got to address that. That’s the biggest risk.”
She is assuring us that inflation is not an imminent threat, and perhaps we should believe her.
After all, if we can just completely ignore the hard numbers and the extremely shocking charts the Federal Reserve keeps putting out, what she is saying sounds pretty good.
I know that it is not “normal” for M1 to nearly double over the course of 12 months, but this is the “new normal” where the laws of economics are suspended and we can do whatever we want.
So let’s borrow and spend trillions more, because this party is just getting started.
A while back, “Republican” Senator Mitt Romney proposed thousands of dollars in direct payments to parents with children, and Democrats liked that idea so much that they plagiarized it…
Under the proposal, the Internal Revenue Service would provide $3,600 over the course of the year per child under the age of 6, as well as $3,000 per child of ages 6 to 17. The size of the benefit would diminish for Americans earning more than $75,000 per year, as well as for couples jointly earning more than $150,000 per year. The payments would be sent monthly beginning in July.
The benefits would not be deducted off taxpayers’ existing tax liability, meaning American parents would still receive $250 per month per child — or $300 per month per young children — even if they have an existing tax obligation with the IRS.
I think that this proposal will have a 90 percent approval rating with U.S. parents.
Of course a minority will strongly object. They will insist that these are “socialist welfare payments” and that the federal government should not be doing this.
If you are one of those objectors, you are 100 percent correct.
But take the money anyway.
Let me be 100 percent serious for a moment. Since the entire ship is going down anyway, take anything that they send to you and use it for yourself and your family. At this point, survival is the priority.
There is no going back to the way that things once were. We are literally committing national financial suicide, and at this point even most Republicans in Washington have completely discarded any pretense of fiscal responsibility.
In the old days, Republicans in Congress at least made minimal attempts to slow down the wild spending that the Obama administration was pushing. But now almost all resistance is gone, and the left is greatly rejoicing that “the path to a fast recovery and an era of prosperity is now open for Biden”…
The left has stewed for a dozen years over Obama’s inability to secure more fiscal stimulus. And while he might perhaps have gotten a bit more out of Congress with more clever design, ultimately the most important constraints came from outside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Obama’s economic-recovery push came in an atmosphere of pure hysteria, in which media and business elites joined by many members of his own party believed the United States stood on the precipice of hyperinflation and a public-debt crisis, the resolution of which had willing partners across the aisle. All those myths now lay in tatters. After hard experience, the path to a fast recovery and an era of prosperity is now open for Biden.
Yeah, we’ll see about that.
But what we do know is that all of the insane borrowing and spending that has been going on is already causing inflation to show up in countless ways.
In 2020, silver performed even better than the stock market did, and it continues to climb higher.
Gold has been surging too, and the outlook for precious metals is going to continue to be bright as long as our leaders continue to flood the system with more money.
Meanwhile, the real economy continues to steadily deteriorate…
Without a fresh round of COVID-19 aid from the federal government, about a third of the nation’s pandemic-stricken small businesses are warning they won’t be able to survive.
That’s according to a new report published by the Federal Reserve, which found that sales for 88% of small businesses have not yet returned to pre-crisis levels. About one in three — roughly 30% — of businesses said they expected they could not stay afloat without further assistance from the government, according to the report from the U.S. central bank’s 12 regional offices.
No amount of complaining from the rest of us will prevent a new round of stimulus payments from going out.
The good news is that all of this new money is likely to improve short-term economic conditions for a very brief period of time.
But the bad news is that our long-term problems continue to get much, much worse.
We are literally in the process of completely destroying our money, and since the U.S. dollar is the de facto reserve currency of the whole world, the economic fate of the entire globe is in our hands.
* * *
Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/10/2021 – 06:30
We Must Have MOAR: Almost Everyone In Washington Seems To Agree That More Free Money Will Fix The Economy
Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,
There seems to be a growing consensus in Washington that the only way to fix the worst economic downturn in more than 70 years is by giving out much more free money. Joe Biden wants more “stimulus”, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wants more “stimulus”, and most members of Congress from both parties want more “stimulus”. Of course none of the previous “stimulus packages” that we spent trillions of dollars on fixed the economy, but they insist that this latest one will finally do the job. In addition to the 1.9 trillion dollar package that Biden has already proposed, Democrats in Congress are now pushing monthly direct payments to parents that have children under the age of 18.
Needless to say, that proposal has overwhelming support among the American people, because direct socialist payments have become wildly popular since they were first introduced last year. But by borrowing and spending so much money, we are literally committing national suicide, but very few people are concerned about that at this point.
Even though the previous round of “stimulus payments” is still being sent out, Biden and his minions can’t wait to start sending out another round.
In fact, Biden insists that we literally “don’t have a second to waste”…
“We don’t have a second to waste when it comes to delivering the American people the relief they desperately need. I’m calling on Congress to act quickly and pass the American Rescue Plan.”
Quite a few independent economists are alarmed by the inflation that previous “stimulus payments” have created, but Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is dismissing those fears.
Instead of focusing on inflation, she says that not sending out more free money would be an even greater risk…
“As treasury secretary, I have to worry about all of the risks to the economy, and the most important risk is that we leave workers and communities scarred by the pandemic and the economic toll that it’s taken, that we don’t do enough to address the pandemic,” Yellen told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
“I’ve spent many years studying inflation and worrying about inflation, and I can tell you, we have the tools to deal with that risk if it materializes,” she continued. “But we face a huge economic challenge here and tremendous suffering in the country. We’ve got to address that. That’s the biggest risk.”
She is assuring us that inflation is not an imminent threat, and perhaps we should believe her.
After all, if we can just completely ignore the hard numbers and the extremely shocking charts the Federal Reserve keeps putting out, what she is saying sounds pretty good.
I know that it is not “normal” for M1 to nearly double over the course of 12 months, but this is the “new normal” where the laws of economics are suspended and we can do whatever we want.
So let’s borrow and spend trillions more, because this party is just getting started.
A while back, “Republican” Senator Mitt Romney proposed thousands of dollars in direct payments to parents with children, and Democrats liked that idea so much that they plagiarized it…
Under the proposal, the Internal Revenue Service would provide $3,600 over the course of the year per child under the age of 6, as well as $3,000 per child of ages 6 to 17. The size of the benefit would diminish for Americans earning more than $75,000 per year, as well as for couples jointly earning more than $150,000 per year. The payments would be sent monthly beginning in July.
The benefits would not be deducted off taxpayers’ existing tax liability, meaning American parents would still receive $250 per month per child — or $300 per month per young children — even if they have an existing tax obligation with the IRS.
I think that this proposal will have a 90 percent approval rating with U.S. parents.
Of course a minority will strongly object. They will insist that these are “socialist welfare payments” and that the federal government should not be doing this.
If you are one of those objectors, you are 100 percent correct.
But take the money anyway.
Let me be 100 percent serious for a moment. Since the entire ship is going down anyway, take anything that they send to you and use it for yourself and your family. At this point, survival is the priority.
There is no going back to the way that things once were. We are literally committing national financial suicide, and at this point even most Republicans in Washington have completely discarded any pretense of fiscal responsibility.
In the old days, Republicans in Congress at least made minimal attempts to slow down the wild spending that the Obama administration was pushing. But now almost all resistance is gone, and the left is greatly rejoicing that “the path to a fast recovery and an era of prosperity is now open for Biden”…
The left has stewed for a dozen years over Obama’s inability to secure more fiscal stimulus. And while he might perhaps have gotten a bit more out of Congress with more clever design, ultimately the most important constraints came from outside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Obama’s economic-recovery push came in an atmosphere of pure hysteria, in which media and business elites joined by many members of his own party believed the United States stood on the precipice of hyperinflation and a public-debt crisis, the resolution of which had willing partners across the aisle. All those myths now lay in tatters. After hard experience, the path to a fast recovery and an era of prosperity is now open for Biden.
Yeah, we’ll see about that.
But what we do know is that all of the insane borrowing and spending that has been going on is already causing inflation to show up in countless ways.
In 2020, silver performed even better than the stock market did, and it continues to climb higher.
Gold has been surging too, and the outlook for precious metals is going to continue to be bright as long as our leaders continue to flood the system with more money.
Meanwhile, the real economy continues to steadily deteriorate…
Without a fresh round of COVID-19 aid from the federal government, about a third of the nation’s pandemic-stricken small businesses are warning they won’t be able to survive.
That’s according to a new report published by the Federal Reserve, which found that sales for 88% of small businesses have not yet returned to pre-crisis levels. About one in three — roughly 30% — of businesses said they expected they could not stay afloat without further assistance from the government, according to the report from the U.S. central bank’s 12 regional offices.
No amount of complaining from the rest of us will prevent a new round of stimulus payments from going out.
The good news is that all of this new money is likely to improve short-term economic conditions for a very brief period of time.
But the bad news is that our long-term problems continue to get much, much worse.
We are literally in the process of completely destroying our money, and since the U.S. dollar is the de facto reserve currency of the whole world, the economic fate of the entire globe is in our hands.
* * *
Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/10/2021 – 06:30
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