Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Domestic spending, a better use for printed money than propping up asset values.

This article is skeptical about rise in stock market noting a correlation between market rising and the Fed printing money over the past decade. It's got me to thinking. Stock value based, I guess, on just money, but not so much in the real economy of goods and services that most people experience. I would add that home values are similar to stocks. Often disconnected from the real economy. Printed money props up assets.

Printed money can also can be used to run the government. I would guess that running the government is a better use of the money than just propping up stocks and home values. As time goes on, the government runs more and more on borrowed money. The Federal Reserve makes that process easier by propping up the money supply.

Part of why the government needs to borrow more and more is the Republican led tax cuts along with continued increases in spending; such as for the military and for Medicare.

We do need government spending to keep civil society intact. For instance, Senator Mitch McConnell may have been the first person to recently call for de funding the police. That wasn't how he phrased it, but suggesting that local governments should be allowed to go bankrupt is a big way to undercut funding for public safety.

McConnell was critical of unsustainable and over generous pensions. He may have had a point there, but police pensions are among the most generous; so I gather. I don't necessarily begrudge the police of their pensions as they do have difficult jobs. Many of the things people value, in society, are based on money. Home equity, pension funds and so forth. We often treat money like it's a god tho money is only a tool.

As time goes on, it becomes apparent that domestic spending, by government, plays an important part in propping up the values that people hold. If we expect to maintain those values and our civil society, the government plays an important role.

Stocks and property values by themselves, are basically meaningless without the economy to support them. They are meaningless without the workers who provide the labor for the economy. They are meaningless without the natural resources and the environment that sustains us.

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