You are correct about this being the part we disagree on. Since 2020, more money/demand has had far less inflationary impact than the shortage of goods (computer chips for cars, grain from Ukraine, petroleum from Russia, etc.) and backlog from supply-chain & production decisions, according to
NBER,
BLS,
World Bank, and most other nonpartisan economists. Energy shocks, alone, counted for about half the rise in core inflation.
As an aside, if printing more money
inherently led to major inflation, all of that Quantitative Easing after 2008 would have produced huge inflation, which is what deficit hawks actually expected and warned about... but it didn't. Banks licked their (self-inflicted) wounds, complied with new banking regulation, and moved on.
As a whole, corporate profits have gone up significantly in the past few years, relative to the rest of the economy. The stock buybacks, executive compensation packages, and other forms of hoarding - as opposed to wage growth, investing in expanding production, or corporate taxes, all of which move the money back into greater circulation - are not static, and have worsened. Government printing is meant to stimulate economic activity (within limits); if hoarding
had remained relatively baseline, we actually would have had more impact, more circulation, from that spending.
On this, we totally agree. Somebody figured out there was novelty in making a hash brown out of beef, I guess?
