# Proposal: Give everyone $1000 a month **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 8, 2014, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-give-everyone-1000-a-month/678294 "2014-01-08T18:47:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-give-everyone-1000-a-month/678294/41 "2014-01-09T00:31:00Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > What would be the advantage of two people filling jointly to get exactly twice the amount? Anyway, this appears to be a variation of Mises negative income tax. Otherwise you’re punishing people for getting married. Of course, you could just force married couples to file separately, but I don’t see the advantage in that. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-give-everyone-1000-a-month/678294/42 "2014-01-09T01:29:44Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > So… let me get this straight: > > People on social security, disability and unemployment are already so unimaginably wealthy that they don’t need any more money. However, those with jobs could certainly use more. Therefore, we’ll send money to all the young, healthy, employed people? > > And then we’ll finance it through debt that we don’t have to pay back? > > Sure, yeah. What could go wrong? That’s right: if you’re already getting at least a thousand a month in cash, you wouldn’t qualify for another thousand, unless you found work. Finding work, on the other hand, ought to be a lot easier, once the program goes into effect. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-give-everyone-1000-a-month/678294/43 "2014-01-09T01:36:49Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > I love this piece of magical thinking: > > “The program would be financed not by taxes, but by special bond issues which would be purchased, directly or indirectly, by the Federal Reserve. The Fed would hold the bonds indefinitely, and return the interest to the Treasury.” > > Hey, since it is free money, why stop at $1000? Let’s give everyone $20,000 a month! The program would be financed not by taxes, but by special bond issues which would be purchased, directly or indirectly, by the Federal Reserve. The Fed would hold the bonds indefinitely, and return the interest to the Treasury. Because 1.) that much money would discourage people from working. (Work is the source of wealth: we need people to work in order to create more wealth.) and 2.) it would generate much more inflation. $1000 a month is barely enough to get by. Some people might quit for one thousand a month, but not many. $20,000 would induce most people to stop working. Then what would they buy with the money? The point is to get more people working, so there’s more stuff to buy. But you have to have people working, in order to have that happen. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-give-everyone-1000-a-month/678294/44 "2014-01-09T01:39:36Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > See [A proposed "welfare" scheme (from another thread) - Great Debates - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=702053) That’s similar to what I’m proposing. If I’m understanding it correctly, I’d support that too. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-give-everyone-1000-a-month/678294/45 "2014-01-09T01:48:41Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > It might make sense to do away with the dozens and hundreds of various assistance programs that subsidize dozens and hundreds of things, and just hand everyone in the country a check on the first of the month, and let them spend it however they like. Then we do away with social security, unemployment, WIC, food stamps, home mortgage interest deductions, tax brackets, housing assistance, minimum wage, personal deductions, and on and on. We’ll probably have to increase the nominal tax rate a bit, low income people essentially pay negative income taxes as the monthly is much larger than what they pay in taxes, middle income people pay low taxes as the monthly check is about the same as they pay in taxes, high income people get a drastically simplified tax code that means they’ll have to pay a higher effective rate. > > It is a simplified version of the negative income tax, the simplicity is that every dollar you earn is a net benefit since you can never edge over income limits to assistance programs. Dramatic decreases in bureaucracy since you don’t have to monitor or administer assistance programs, everyone gets a check whether they’re a crackhead living under a bridge or Bill Gates. I suppose if you’re incarcerated then your monthly check will be garnished to defray the cost of keeping you locked up. > > It’s a pretty good idea, the primary benefit is simplicity and transparency, since poor people already get all kinds of random-ass direct and indirect subsidies. However, this is why we will never ever implement something like this. Everybody likes the convoluted method because it hides all sorts of things that various people prefer to keep hidden for various reasons. I’d support much o what you’re saying. Certainly doing away with the mortgage deduction, which makes no sense to me. I wouldn’t send checks to people who’re incarcerated, but there are some advantages to it. I’d also retain Social Security, since many (almost all?) are making more than $1000, and that’s money they’ve been promised and are relying on. It’d be unfair to suddenly take that away from them. On the other hand, you could possible phase out Security for people under a certain age, I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-give-everyone-1000-a-month/678294/46 "2014-01-09T02:08:14Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > OP’s proposal is not as controversial as it seems! Indeed it is essentially the status quo! > > His proposal has three parts: (A) the simplicity of flat payments vs a hodgepodge of welfare and tax exemption programs; (B) income redistribution @$1000; (C) financing by, in effect, printing money. Let’s consider the issues, one by one. > > (A) I like simplicity. But a little streamlining of welfare is a panacea for nothing. > > (B) Considering the size of food-stamp program, progressive tax coding, etc., the $1000 size of the program is smallish. (I’ve proposed waiving SocSec on most or all of the first $18k of income; this would be like a 6% raise for min-wage workers without coming from employer, and is in the same $1000 ballpark.) > > (C) Three options for financing are government revenue streams, e.g. taxes; borrowing; “printing” money. Whether OP’s scheme should be classified as borrowing or printing is almost irrelevant: either way the present QE financing is similar and already higher than the [del]$1.5 trillion :dubious: where did this figure come from? [/del] ~$0.2 trillion level implied by OP. > > In short, OP is not asking us to speculate on a fantasy. He’s describing present reality. $1.5 trillion is a back of the envelope calculation. I figure there’s something there’s something like 150 million people who qualify for the program, excluding children and people who are already getting at least 12,000/year in government assistance: most people over 65, and some people who are getting unemployment or disability or some other assistance. I then offset it a little more for increased employment (more people working and therefore paying taxes), more people filing (and therefore paying taxes) in order to participate in the program, and for the fact that the money would be taxed as ordinary income: higher earners would be paying their marginal tax rate on the additional money. The number could be off, but certainly not as low as .2 trillion. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-give-everyone-1000-a-month/678294/47 "2014-01-09T02:14:09Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > i’m still not seeing how this doesn’t fuel inflation. I don’t get any cash payments from the government right now, so if I suddenly get $10K, I’m likely to spend more, which increases demand and drives up prices. Anyone who isn’t getting government assistance is in the same boat, and there have to be more than a few of us. You will,spend money. That’s the point. But initially, businesses will hire more people to meet demand, which will result in less unemployment and more production. So long as production is able to keep up with demand, competition will keep prices from rising. When or if businesses can longer keep up,with demand, they’ll raise prices. But by then several million more people will be working, and everyone will be better off. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-give-everyone-1000-a-month/678294/48 "2014-01-09T02:23:37Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > You will,spend money. That’s the point. But initially, businesses will hire more people to meet demand, which will result in less unemployment and more production. So long as production is able to keep up with demand, competition will keep prices from rising. > > When or if businesses can longer keep up,with demand, they’ll raise prices. But by then several million more people will be working, and everyone will be better off. While I think it’s an unwise use of $1.5 trillion dollars, to play along, I would have to say that I think there’ll be at least a year worth of lag time built into any benefit to the economy, based on the attempts at stimulus from GW Bush. I say this because if you assay people’s economic status, now, you’ll see a lot of debt. So if you are working below subsistence level and are scraping by, you’ll pay off anything that will help you stabilize (eg rent) or, if you are stable in house and home, you’ll pay off debt first. Credit cards and such will get paid off, as will any arrears in cars, mortgages, etc. This won’t boost economic activity as much as I think you are planning, because those payments will go to the lenders’ books. They won’t need to hire more people to handle the volume for that sort of thing, and they won’t, say, give out bonuses to their employees to spread the joy around. It’ll get absorbed by debt and interest rates. I think this would work better if everyone was just cash poor instead of actually in debt. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-give-everyone-1000-a-month/678294/49 "2014-01-09T02:24:02Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Landlords would raise rents $1000.00 per month. Well, not all of them, and certainly not all at once. For one thing, there are rental agreements, so they’d have to wait until the lease ran out. At that point, of your rent went up, wouldn’t you start looking for somewhere else? And if there were lots of people looking for apartments, that would provide an incentive for apartment builders to build apartments. That’s happening in my city right now. Unemployment is low, people are moving here, and new apartment complexes are going up like mushrooms after a rain. If there were only a fixed number of apartments, your theory would be right. But there is not. When there’s a demand for more places for people to live, construction workers go to work. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-give-everyone-1000-a-month/678294/50 "2014-01-09T03:12:44Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > In the long run. Theoretically. If all else is equal. > > But the natural experiment we’ve been performing for the last six years says that increasing the monetary supply by billions upon billions does not inexorably lead to short-term inflation under at least some conditions. Doesn’t it? The Fed increased it’s holding from about a trillion, or a little less than that, to 3-4 trillion, without creating any inflation. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-give-everyone-1000-a-month/678294/51 "2014-01-09T03:15:47Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > That’s because we’re not handing out billions and billions on streetcorners to poor people who will turn around and waste that money on food and shelter and clothing and cocaine. That money is (metaphorically) sitting in bank vaults but it isn’t being used. Money that isn’t being used doesn’t exist. If the government prints up trillion dollar bills and then digs a hole in the backyard and buries the money, those trillion dollar bills won’t contribute to inflation because they aren’t actually circulating. > > Well, most of the money created after the crisis isn’t really circulating either. It’s sitting there but it’s not being spent. That means the money isn’t being used to bid for goods and services, which means the prices for goods and services aren’t being bid up, which means we don’t get inflation, since that’s what inflation is. > > If that money starts trickling out into the wild, then yes we’ll see inflation. A banker with a billion dollars carefully saved in a bank vault doesn’t create inflation. A million poor people each spending a thousand dollars on food and iPods will. They’ll also create employment, with a corresponding increase in the supply of goods and services. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-give-everyone-1000-a-month/678294/52 "2014-01-09T03:28:18Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > They’ll also create employment, with a corresponding increase in the supply of goods and services. > [@XT](#): > > How do you arrive at that figure? There are 316 million people, of which only around 250 million would seemingly be eligible (approximately). That’s 250 billion a month, times 12 months is $3 trillion. It only works out to $1.5 trillion (per year) if you are only talking about half that number, or 125 million people eligible…which is less than half the population. > > I guess my main issue here is what, exactly, are we trying to solve with this? I assume all of the existing social programs we are already spending money on will remain in place, we won’t be cutting anything out of the budget, so we’ll just be adding between $1.5-3 trillion to the annual budget and the majority of that money won’t be going to the poorest Americans, but instead to the working classes (who I guess can use a thousand dollars a month) and the upperclasses (who won’t even notice getting that extra money), at the expense of higher taxes somewhere down the line, since there is no free lunch, regardless of how you try and finagle how you pay for all of this. The financing will be done through the Fed, which will buy the bonds and hold them indefinitely, returning the interest to the Treasury (which is already their standard practice). There would be no increase in taxes. (Not that I’m against raising taxes, or at least some taxes, but that’s not what I’m proposing here.) The number could be low. As I said earlier, not everyone would be getting the payment: dependents (children), people who are getting Social Security, and other people who are already getting assistance of at least $1000 a month. The number would also be offset because it would be taxed as regular income, and I anticipate it would dramatically reduce unemployment, meaning more people working and therefore paying more taxes. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-give-everyone-1000-a-month/678294/53 "2014-01-09T04:09:34Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > But you have to wrap it really well. > Which is a good point. Just don’t ask where the Federal Reserve gets the money to buy the bonds or pay the interest. > > Regards, > Shodan The Fed gets money from the same place it’s every bank gets it: it creates it. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-give-everyone-1000-a-month/678294/54 "2014-01-09T04:18:55Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > While I think it’s an unwise use of $1.5 trillion dollars, to play along, I would have to say that I think there’ll be at least a year worth of lag time built into any benefit to the economy, based on the attempts at stimulus from GW Bush. > > I say this because if you assay people’s economic status, now, you’ll see a lot of debt. So if you are working below subsistence level and are scraping by, you’ll pay off anything that will help you stabilize (eg rent) or, if you are stable in house and home, you’ll pay off debt first. > > Credit cards and such will get paid off, as will any arrears in cars, mortgages, etc. This won’t boost economic activity as much as I think you are planning, because those payments will go to the lenders’ books. They won’t need to hire more people to handle the volume for that sort of thing, and they won’t, say, give out bonuses to their employees to spread the joy around. It’ll get absorbed by debt and interest rates. > > I think this would work better if everyone was just cash poor instead of actually in debt. Perhaps. But even if people pay off debt, that means the people to whom they pay the money will then have be looking for other opportunities to lend (perhaps at lower interpret rates), or else otherwise invest. The only other options are to do nothing (which means the money will be worth less and less over time, because of inflation) or to spend it. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-give-everyone-1000-a-month/678294/55 "2014-01-09T04:57:15Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > Perhaps. But even if people pay off debt, that means the people to whom they pay the money will then have be looking for other opportunities to lend (perhaps at lower interpret rates), or else otherwise invest. The only other options are to do nothing (which means the money will be worth less and less over time, because of inflation) or to spend it. Right now you can’t really get lower interest rates. And a Credit Card rate isn’t going to drop any. In terms of spend or invest, we showed with the last stimulus plans that paying off debt doesn’t change the situation much. I’m sure the situation would change if we paid off ALL of their debt and then gave them extra money. $12,000 in a single year (ostensibly tax free) might do that for a lot of people. The average is somewhere in the neighborhood of $14-16,000 so for a little more than half wouldn’t get there. ---
**Author:** ![Mtgman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@Mtgman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mtgman)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-give-everyone-1000-a-month/678294/56 "2014-01-09T05:25:18Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > i’m still not seeing how this doesn’t fuel inflation. I don’t get any cash payments from the government right now, so if I suddenly get $10K, I’m likely to spend more, which increases demand and drives up prices. Anyone who isn’t getting government assistance is in the same boat, and there have to be more than a few of us. I’m still not seeing how [this](http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/10/qe1-timeline.html) [doesn’t fuel inflation.](http://inflationdata.com/articles/2012/09/14/effects-quantitative-easing/) I’m still not seeing how [THIS](http://money.cnn.com/2010/11/03/news/economy/fed_decision/) doesn’t fuel inflation. I’m still not seeing [HOW THIS](http://lexicon.ft.com/term?term=qe3) [doesn’t fuel inflation](http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/). Every one of those programs pumped more than 1000/mo per household of “printed out of thin air money” into the economy. Maybe inflation doesn’t work like we think it does. Enjoy, Steven ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-give-everyone-1000-a-month/678294/57 "2014-01-09T14:25:07Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Yes, all landlords everywhere in the United States could all raise rents by $1000 a month. > > But they could do that today. All landlords in the US tomorrow suddenly raise rents, and the rest of us have to pay higher housing costs. > > Why can’t landlords do that? Because there are alternatives to renting, like buying, or sleeping on someone’s couch, or on the streets. Landlords are already charging as much as they can to rent housing, if they could raise prices unilaterally they would have already done it. All rental markets are local. But I think that’s funny “alternatives to renting”. Sure, single mom, three kids, working at WalMart for minimum wage … she can just sleep on a friend’s couch … or better, she can just buy a house !!! The one thing you’re missing is a typical person’s priorities, what with food stamps and clothing vouchers … safe housing is most people’s number one expense, up to 1/3 their income. A smart landlord preys upon this, literally entraps the tenant. Landlord are raising rents … have been for 5 years … it’s called obscene profits. Whoever else has been suffering during this recession, it hasn’t been landlords [giggle]. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-give-everyone-1000-a-month/678294/58 "2014-01-09T16:56:48Z")
If landlords are making obscene profits, then why isn’t every businessman doing everything they can to build new apartments and rental houses? If a new apartment is a license to print money? The fact is that owning a rental house or an apartment building is not, in fact, a license to print money and generate obscene profits. You may have noticed the housing boom, which crashed a while back? And all the shiny new apartment buildings slapped together back in the boom days, which are struggling to find tenants? Housing is subject to the laws of supply and demand just like any other good. Yes, rent goes up. This is because the landlord figures that if you won’t pay the new higher rent, someone else will. And yes, a lot of landlords lost their shirts during the housing crash. You build or buy properties at vastly inflated prices, and then watch the value of those properties crash to the ground, you lose a lot of money. And if you borrowed the money to purchase those properties from the bank, you’re not just seeing the value of your assets decrease, you’re now in the hole. That’s what the housing crash was all about. People–including landlords–owed mortgages on properties and the value of the mortgage was now much higher than the market price for the property. As I said, if acting as a landlord is such a sure-fire way to make money, why aren’t you doing it? OK, you’re broke and don’t have the money for such an investment. But what about your neighbor, who isn’t broke? Why isn’t he buying a rental property and making obscene money? ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2014, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-give-everyone-1000-a-month/678294/59 "2014-01-11T00:24:32Z")
> [@Mtgman](#): > > I’m still not seeing how [this](http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/10/qe1-timeline.html) [doesn’t fuel inflation.](http://inflationdata.com/articles/2012/09/14/effects-quantitative-easing/) > > I’m still not seeing how [THIS](http://money.cnn.com/2010/11/03/news/economy/fed_decision/) doesn’t fuel inflation. > > I’m still not seeing [HOW THIS](http://lexicon.ft.com/term?term=qe3) [doesn’t fuel inflation](http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/). > > Every one of those programs pumped more than 1000/mo per household of “printed out of thin air money” into the economy. Maybe inflation doesn’t work like we think it does. > > Enjoy, > Steven There’s no doubt inflation doesn’t work the way a lot of people think it does. The Fed has purchased trillions in bonds over the last few years, and inflation has only gone down. It’s rare in economics you can perform an experiment to test a theory, but this was one of those rare cases. People who thought that QE would cause inflation were wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2014, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-give-everyone-1000-a-month/678294/60 "2014-01-11T03:45:00Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > Well, not everyone: everyone who files a tax return. $1000 for each single person, $2000 for a married couple filing jointly. The payments would be offset by any cash payment you’re already getting: for example, Social Security, disability, or unemployment. People in jail or prison would be ineligible… > > Any drawbacks? Broadly speaking, the plan is a fine one though it is ~6 years too late. It’s sometimes called a helicopter drop. I see no reason for the SS offsets though. And I’d extend payments to minors. Higher inflation during times of recession combined with ultra low interest rates results in even lower _inflation adjusted_ interest rates. Which aids economic recovery. I would think that Milton Friedman would approve. The downside is that the end of the lesser depression is within sight now (1-3 years?) And I would abort the plan once core inflation hit my 3% target. I’m allowing for overshoot: 4% inflation wouldn’t be too different than what we had during the late Reagan/early GHWBush era. > [@Mtgman](#): > > Every one of those programs pumped more than 1000/mo per household of “printed out of thin air money” into the economy. Maybe inflation doesn’t work like we think it does. Inflation indeed does not work like folk economics says it does. I’m not aware that Milton Friedman _ever_ said that the monetary base would be the relevant monetary aggregate to study. And M2 isn’t really out of whack. > **[M2 | FRED | St. Louis Fed](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?chart_type=line&s%5B1%5D%5Bid%5D=M2SL&s%5B1%5D%5Btransformation%5D=pc1)** > > View data of a measure of the U.S. money supply that includes all components of M1 plus several less-liquid assets. Surprising, really. One would think that the most mainstream measure of the money supply would show greater evidence for QE1, 2 and 3. Incidentally, I mostly disagree with Friedman’s monetarist views. But at least his framework was coherent, if not subsequently empirically supported. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-give-everyone-1000-a-month/678294.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-give-everyone-1000-a-month/678294.md?page=4)