(01-05-2021, 09:46 PM)Sneakers Wrote:

(01-05-2021, 07:48 PM)StroudCrowd1 Wrote: If they send it, keep it. Good for you. Government giving you free money you didnt ask for is not the time nor place to declare your moral superiority and pound your chest. Take it, invest it, enjoy it, buy something frivolous with it, donate it. Its YOURS.

Two problems with "free money"; 

1)  What tax burden are we ultimately just imposing on ourselves and/or deferring to our children?

2)  The National Debt is currently at $27,678,337,188,396 and increasing about 7 grand per second.  How high can it go without collapse?  What's the magic number, beyond which the house of cards comes tumbling down?

There is no quantitative easing right now, and the market is letting the feds borrow money with interest rates lower than inflation, so it's partially free money.
Other countries are also increasing their debt, also due to covid, so debt is unlikely to disrupt the balance of trade at this time.
If borrowing increases to the point where the market demands higher interest rates, quantitative easing could begin again.  People say that's a recipe for inflation but it's only a partial recipe.  An excess of money doesn't become inflation unless there is also a shortage of goods.  There has been slack in most production facilities since 2007; shortages also seem unlikely.  
Except for food crops.  If there's ever like the corn version of Covid, or the soybean version of spanish flu, or climate change creating drought beyond what even the doomsayers predict, that's when all of the above becomes null and void. We won't have food shortages unless stuff like that that happens.

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