>what negative economic feedback follows
>from 'loose money'?
Inflation, which isn't necessarily good for the working class. I've had this argument before, but maybe it's time to have it again. As far as I can tell, there's no empirical evidence for the populist assumption that higher rates of inflation are good for the w.c. The high-inflation years of the 1970s were also times of real wage loss. A decade summary shows no simple relation between inflation and real wage gains:
REAL HOURLY WAGE & CONSUMER PRICE INFLATION average annual change by decade
real wage CPI 1890-1900 +0.7% -0.8% 1900-1910 +1.3% +0.8% 1910-1920 +2.7% +6.9% 1920-1930 +1.4% +0.1% 1930-1940 +1.7% -2.0% 1940-1950 +2.5% +5.6% 1950-1960 +2.7% +2.0% 1960-1970 +1.7% +2.3% 1970-1980 +0.2% +7.1% 1980-1990 -0.8% +5.6% 1990-1999 +0.2% +3.0%
Maybe a finer-grained look would be more revealing. But I'd say the benefits of loose money are not yet proved.
Doug