Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Roughly half of the American population pay Zero federal taxes

I think money printing in the one or the other form will continue. Now increasingly central banks and fund managers and treasury departments are talking about helicopter money. Helicopter money you don't just buy securities that are traded in the public market like treasuries or sovereign bonds and equities, but you essentially distribute money to each individual. 

Distributing money is like a tax cut but whereas the tax cut only flows to people that actually pay tax, pay federal tax in the US and roughly half of Americans do not pay Federal tax. So, that tax cut is not taxing everybody but if I send a cheque to every man, woman and child for $10,000 then he gets that money and he can then go and spend that money, for a month or two that obviously boosts economic activity unquestionably but then comes the question, who finances this? 

So, what can happen in this helicopter money is that the treasury issues bonds that investors would buy or the treasury just gets the money from the Federal Reserve, so that is another form of money printing.

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