[murgindrag]

I expect inflation to remain high for a while, and I think concerns about it (if not for self-fulfilling psychological, which are very real and significant) are overblown. I think this stimulus, and the resulting inflation, DID help the economy, relative to the alternatives. The critical thing was to avoid structural damage:

- Businesses going under

- People losing jobs

- Mortgages going under

... and so on. All of this DOES directly impact the productive output of the economy.

Inflation does distort the economy a little bit. It makes some of us poorer (those with cash), some of us richer (those with debt), and leaves some neutral (this with hard assets). But I think this distortion pales relative to the alternative.

[silexia]

Business is going under is actually a good thing. It frees up market space for new entrepreneurs and new businesses to be able to get going and make newer better offerings. The last two recessions all of the big companies have been bailed out, which means that we have the same bad practices and bad CEOs still in charge of our economy. Let them go bankrupt and then we will have fresh ground for entrepreneurs to flourish.

[bumby]

>Let them go bankrupt and then we will have fresh ground for entrepreneurs to flourish.

I agree to this in some contexts, but I also think it's sometimes used with too broad of a brush. It seems to ignore the time lag that means sometimes things can get really bad before they get better. Sure, allowing banks and automotive manufacturers to go under could create "fresh ground for entrepreneurs to flourish." But it could also create decades of depression/recession effects before that flourishing happens. We're currently seeinng the supply chain effects that people didn't really anticipate well. As someone from the rust belt, there are an awful lot of tangentially related manufacturers who will also go away with the automotive sector, which has ripple effects in a ton of other industries. Protracted economic depressions tend to create "fresh ground" for despots to "flourish" as well.