Do you know of a good explanation for why the Federal Reserve’s efforts to inject more money into the US economy since 2008 has not quickly brought it back to near full employment?
1) The Fed has made it clear that the injections are temporary and will be removed if the economy improves. Standard theory says that increases in the money supply expected to be temporary basically have no effect on inflation or (they lead people to want to hold more money). If you double the money supply but promise to reverse this in a year, the result is not huge inflation now till a year from now and then huge deflation, but no inflation (lots of people think about inflation as a differential equation, but this will lead you astray).
2) Near the start of the crisis in 2008, the Fed started paying interest on reserves which encourages banks to hold excess reserves, of which they hold a huuuuuuuuuuge amount. The interest rate is quite small, but this can have a huge effect this rate is above what banks can get elsewhere (risk adjusted). The appropriate interest on reserves could also easily be negative.
Also, the uncertainty about when the injections will be removed keep investors on the sidelines. People don’t like uncertainty, and will often wait it out.
Why would anyone assume that everyone (in the US and other wealthy nations in particular) is economically viable as an employee at prevailing wage rates?
Add in increasing regulatory and financial burdens to employers. Add in an economy increasingly based on information, where information coordination is more and more a relevant and limiting factor. Add in technology rapidly making people with meager skills obsolete.
Even without the add ins, management and coordination have financial costs and opportunity costs that a worker’s productivity may not overcome.
Do you know of a good explanation for why the Federal Reserve’s efforts to inject more money into the US economy since 2008 has not quickly brought it back to near full employment?
Yes, there are two big reasons:
1) The Fed has made it clear that the injections are temporary and will be removed if the economy improves. Standard theory says that increases in the money supply expected to be temporary basically have no effect on inflation or (they lead people to want to hold more money). If you double the money supply but promise to reverse this in a year, the result is not huge inflation now till a year from now and then huge deflation, but no inflation (lots of people think about inflation as a differential equation, but this will lead you astray).
2) Near the start of the crisis in 2008, the Fed started paying interest on reserves which encourages banks to hold excess reserves, of which they hold a huuuuuuuuuuge amount. The interest rate is quite small, but this can have a huge effect this rate is above what banks can get elsewhere (risk adjusted). The appropriate interest on reserves could also easily be negative.
Also, the uncertainty about when the injections will be removed keep investors on the sidelines. People don’t like uncertainty, and will often wait it out.
Why would anyone assume that everyone (in the US and other wealthy nations in particular) is economically viable as an employee at prevailing wage rates?
Add in increasing regulatory and financial burdens to employers. Add in an economy increasingly based on information, where information coordination is more and more a relevant and limiting factor. Add in technology rapidly making people with meager skills obsolete.
Even without the add ins, management and coordination have financial costs and opportunity costs that a worker’s productivity may not overcome.