Monetary growth

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So, the monetary base has tripled.

According to Milton Friedman, the price level will therefore triple “after large and variable delay”

One interpretation of this event is that the Keynesians are doubling down.  Since large doses of Keynesianism did not work, they conclude a bigger dose is required.

I am inclined, however, to regard the economics departments of Ivy League universities as primarily megaphones of the government, one microphone, many megaphones, bellowing ignorant and stupid propaganda justifying whatever the government is doing today, regardless of whether the propaganda is consistent with their justification of what the government was doing yesterday.

On this interpretation, the monetary base initially doubled late in 2008 through the government handing out eight hundred billion to their pals in finance to keep them from going bust, then rose more slowly in 2009 by an additional five hundred billion, through massive vote buying and payoffs to cronies, and now as the election comes in sight, rising again, five hundred billion so far, for more vote buying, and today’s Keynesianism is merely a rationalization as to why this is a good thing.

On this theory it is going to go right on accelerating all the way to the election, by which time the monetary base will probably have quadrupled from its 2008 levels, possibly quintupled.