This means you, Lusty Lad or Captain Midnight.
There's been huge growth in the money supply during the Covid Crisis. M1+M2 has moved up from 19.9 trillion dollars on 3/16/2020 to 25.8 trillion at 12/22/2020.
Over the last 8 months, M1 is up 60% and M2 is up 24%. Taking a comparable period in the 2008/2009 recession, the increases were 8% and 14% respectively. I understand part of the reason for the jump in M1 is that the Fed moved savings accounts from M2 to M1, but regardless both are up a lot.
I realize a lot of this increase was because of the Fed. But does this also mean a good chunk of the stimulus money we're going to have to pay back someday has been going into bank accounts, instead of into, well, stimulus?
And is this a worry when people and businesses start spending again and the velocity of money picks up? Are we potentially looking at inflation down the road?