Keynesian economics, at its finest.
The theory was, solution to a poor economic state was to “prime the pump.” Keynes argued that the government should step in to increase spending, either by increasing the money supply or by actually buying things itself. During the Great Depression, however, this was not a popular solution.
And it is a particularly unpopular solution today, even in the face of the insistence of the Current Occupant of the White Hut and his clever wizard, Ben Bernanke, that a perpetual pumping up of the money supply goes on and on.