I guess @RJ had championed the Austrian view so much that he got bored of doing so, to the point a few years later he to some degree took the other side, when disaffected Millenials @Jean, @BRUTE, and @MI picked up the torch in the thread
regarding the Swiss vote to end fractional reserve banking.
Wolf Richter has done a good job cataloguing the use of all this QE.
America Convulses in Pain, Fed Bails Out the Wealthy
What’s so insidious about the Fed’s bailouts of investors in hedge funds, mortgage-REITS, stocks, bonds, leveraged loans, and other often risky assets? The destruction of capitalism.
What Unicorn Money-Sinkholes Actually Disrupt
What do the companies Wayfair, Zillow, Uber, Lyft, WeWork, Carvana, Tesla, Airbnb, Casper Sleep, Zume, and many others have in common in addition to their current or former status as unicorns with huge valuations?
There is one fundamental thing they all have in common: Supported by what seemed to be an endless flow of investor money, they barged into profitable industries, such as retailing furniture, house flipping, real estate brokerage, taxi operations, serviced temporary offices, selling used cars, manufacturing new cars, retailing mattresses, pizza delivery, and the like, and they disrupted them by throwing around often billions of dollars that they obtained in wave after wave from investors.
And in these profitable industries, they accomplished an amazing feat: they managed very successfully to lose a running ton of money, not just the first year or two while getting their feet on the ground, but year after year, in many cases for over a decade, without hopes of ever making a profit as defined, not by their own home-made metrics, but by Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, or GAAP.
And in the process, they turned themselves into money-sinkholes, supported and subsidized by investors’ willingness to throw good money after bad, right into that sinkhole. That’s how these companies disrupted: They turned classic profitable business models – from house flipping to used car sales – into endless cash-burn machines. And it took a lot of genius to accomplish that.
https://wolfstreet.com/2020/05/29/fed-t ... s-stalled/
If…
Since March 11, the Fed has printed $2.78 trillion to inflate asset prices across the spectrum and bail out those that owned those assets. The Fed also wanted to restart the chase for yield that makes investors reckless and trains them to count on future bailouts when it hits the fan again.
If the Fed had spread that $2.78 trillion equally over the 130 million households in the US, each household would have received $21,426 – welcome help in this crisis for less-well-off households. But this was not for them. It was helicopter money for Wall Street and asset holders.
The post in this thread that most succinctly captured the truth:
RealPerson wrote: ↑Thu Feb 21, 2013 5:04 pm
Wide income differences provide incentives for people to work hard, start businesses and take risks. As a result, you get a growing economy. Once in a while, you even hit a jackpot like Microsoft or Apple. But you also get large income differences.
Taxing the rich to pay for various equalizers reduces the incentive to work crazy hours and take risks in starting up your own business. The largest experiment to date with equalizing was the old Soviet Union. The factory worker made about the same as the doctor. Collective property rights also means nobody had any incentive to take risks or work harder. We all know the outcome of that experiment. Less economic growth but more income equality.
There is no magic to this. Human nature is the same all over the planet. We get in trouble when we think incentives do not change human behavior. Having less economic activity in return for more income equality may well be a worthwhile trade-off. It's just that we have to be comfortable recognizing that it is a trade-off.
So there is no magic to it. Economic and political theory fed to us all just post hoc justification to advance the interests of the rich and powerful. Rich people make the rules. Change them as they see fit. Throw crumbs to the poor. The middle class (or what was left of it) supports everyone. If we think prosperity comes magically without producing goods and services then collapse is inevitable. Unless collapse is already inevitable because of resource exhaustion, and the rich are just husbanding the totality of the wealth, to survive the coming episodes of mass death.
Certainly a few nerdy NTs at the corner of the internet will change nothing. Understandable to take the perspective that one may as well game the system until it breaks. Which may be soon.
Everybody Knows
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died
Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long-stem rose
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you've been faithful
Oh, give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you've been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
And everybody knows that it's now or never
Everybody knows that it's me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
When you've done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows
And everybody knows that the Plague is coming
Everybody knows that it's moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows
And everybody knows that you're in trouble
Everybody knows what you've been through
From the bloody cross on top of Calvary
To the beach of Malibu
Everybody knows it's coming apart
Take one last look at this Sacred Heart
Before it blows
Everybody knows