Central banks and governments around the world are pulling out all the stops to replace income lost from COVID-19 shutdowns, including as we have seen in the United States direct payments to individuals.
We are devoting a WEALTHTRACK podcast this week to “Helicopter Money”, a concept coined by Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman who theorized that as a last resort in a deflationary depression the government could drop dollar bills from a helicopter for people to pick up and spend to “shock it out of a deep slump” with the “aim of boosting demand and inflation.”
That theory has now become reality and our financial thought leader guest, Paul McCulley believes it signals a new era whose time has finally come. McCulley will discuss the far-reaching policy changes now occurring and why he believes many will become permanent.
McCulley has been a WEALTHTRACK regular since the beginning, starting when he was Senior Partner at PIMCO where he was Founding Member of its Investment Policy Committee, author of the influential monthly “Global Central Bank Focus” and manager of its huge short-term trading desk overseeing an estimated $400 billion.
Since retiring from PIMCO in 2010 he has been busy writing, speaking, and teaching. He is currently an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and Senior Fellow at Cornell Law School.
McCulley says the concept of “Helicopter Money” from the government is here to stay and we are in a new era where monetary policy will play a subordinate role to fiscal actions.
WEALTHTRACK Episode #1648; Originally Published on May 29, 2020
Listen to the audio only version here:
[box type=”shadow”]The economy is “really bad” but getting “better” according to Ed Hyman, Wall Street’s #1 economist for 39 years running. Hyman just raised his forecast for the economy for the second half and next year because of ongoing, massive government stimulus and a better than 50% chance of an effective coronavirus vaccine by early 2021. But the economy is still in terrible shape and a second wave of economic damage worries him. That’s a topic we discussed with him in a wide-ranging interview a couple of weeks ago which we are revisiting this week during spring fundraising season on Public Television. You can watch the episode again here, or watch the extended interview here.
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