M2 is currently a bit less than $11 trillion. That doesn't seem to have stopped the government from issuing $17 trillion in debt. Not to mention trillions more in state and local debt, corporate and personal debt.
Government debt is locked up in what is referred to as M4 money, isn't it? That means 17T out of use by the public. Might explain why M2V (velocity) is falling - the government is sucking too many dollars out of the economy? Then there is M3 which they stopped tracking sometime back.
What amounts have they bought in the past before QE, Tarp, or etc.?
Their entire balance sheet, pre-crisis, was about $800 billion
Now we're around 4T. Thanks.
Pretty sure you claimed the Treasury could never pay off any debt, without more money issued by the Fed. If I misunderstood your claim, I apologize.
Sorry, my excessive use of hyperbole mudded the waters. I'm pretty sure if you look at the US debt practically, it will never be paid off. Both because government spending makes up about half (IIRC) of our GDP and the entitled in this country will riot as soon as you begin any sort of meaningful cuts. How do you payoff a 17T debt with a collapsed economy?
I did say that in a debt based fiat system you could never pay off "the debt" (not treasury debt - the entire debt). To clarify that statement, it's pretty simple really: If the first unit had to be borrowed into existence, with interest, then that doesn't leave anything to pay the interest with, so you have to borrow that, and on and on to infinitum until the entire system collapses under its own weight.
Do you know of any reliable data about how much the Fed makes off of each dollar from creation to grave? Thanks!
Not sure what you mean here. The government did not borrow this $17 trillion to hide the pile of money in a vault somewhere. They borrowed the money and spent lots of it on "the public", much of it on the non-working segment of "the public".
Might explain why M2V (velocity) is falling - the government is sucking too many dollars out of the economy?
Velocity isn't a very useful number, simply money supply divided by GDP. Government spending is part of GDP, so that wouldn't cause velocity to drop.
Increasing the supply, a lot, while GDP is sluggish, will cause velocity to drop.
I'm pretty sure if you look at the US debt practically, it will never be paid off.
Right. Which is a political issue, not a "debt can never be repaid, because borrowing increases money supply" issue.
I did say that in a debt based fiat system you could never pay off "the debt" (not treasury debt - the entire debt).
You could pay off the entire public debt.
Do you know of any reliable data about how much the Fed makes off of each dollar from creation to grave?
Not sure what you're getting at. The Fed prints (gets the BEP to print it) $1 billion in $20s and sells them to a bank, in exchange for their reserve balance of $1 billion. Then they buy T-Bills with it and collect the interest. They make money off the debt they buy, there is no "interest attached" to the FRN, despite idiotic claims otherwise.
Hope that helps.