- accommodative monetary policy
- achieving price stability
- acting to the detriment of creditors
- adding to bank reserves
- adding liquidity
- aggressive monetary policy
- ample liquidity
- acquiring Treasury securities on the open market and only on a temporary basis
- asset price inflation
- asset purchase plan
- asset swap
- bailouts (*)
- banana republic
- Bernanke's toolkit
- bond-buying by the U.S. central bank
- central bank financing of government deficits
- cheapen the currency
- collecting an inflation tax
- conjuring money up from the ether with black magic Fed spells
- creating inflation
- creating money
- creating money electronically
- creating excess reserves
- creating reserves ‘ex nihilo’
- crediting bank reserve accounts
- CTRL+P
- currency intervention
- currency manipulation
- dangerous experiments with our currency
- default by stealth
- deficit accommodating
- deficits don't matter
- deficit spending *
- dovish monetary policy
- debasing the currency
- debasement
- destroying the value of the dollar
- devaluing the currency
- disbursing currency
- dollar conjuring
- driving the dollar down
- dump more dollars onto the market
- easing credit
- easing credit conditions
- easing monetary policy
- easy monetary policy
- easy money
- ensuring sufficient liquidity
- expansionary monetary policy
- expanding high powered money
- expanding liquidity
- expanding the Fed's balance sheet
- expanding the global supply of dollars
- Fed purchasing debt
- Fed’s purchase program
- fighting deflation
- free money
- fully sovereign in its own currency
- funding the deficit
- government thievery
- helicopter drop
- helping exports with cheaper dollars
- imagineering money
- imposing an inflation tax
- increasing the money supply
- inflating away the debt
- inflation
- inflation targeting
- implementing alternative monetary policy
- increasing the monetary base
- injecting money into the economy
- issuing fiat currency
- issuing reserves
- just monetary policy (Bernanke)
- keep the short-term interest rate at exceptionally low levels
- Keynesian economics
- liquidity enhancement
- liquidity injection
- liquidity management operations
- liquidity operations
- loose monetary policy
- lowering interest rates
- low-rate monetary policy
- LTRO - long term refinancing operation
- making money
- marvelous monetary sweetener
- modern monetary theory (MMT)
- MMT like policy
- monetizing the debt
- monetization
- monetary diarrhea
- monetary expansion
- monetary policy tools
- money out of thin air
- money rains
- mortgage security purchase program
- no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society
- nontraditional policies
- not monetizing the debt
- not printing money
- open market operations
- outright monetary transactions (OMT)
- papering over problems
- playing god with the economy
- plucking money from a money tree
- policy of dollar depreciation
- preventing the currency from strengthening
- printing money
- promiscuous easing
- promoting price stability
- providing additional accommodation
- providing liquidity
- pump-priming
- pumping money into the banking system
- pushing inflation upward
- pushing up inflation to levels consistent with our mandate (Bernanke)
- qualitative and quantitative easing
- quantitative easing
- quantitative counterfeiting
- QE
- QE1
- QE2
- QE3
- QE Infinity
- QE to infinity and beyond
- QE Tapering
- recipe for financial disaster
- retiring Treasuries
- ruinous monetary insanity
- run the printing presses
- seigniorage
- solution to the credit crunch
- sowing the seeds of future inflation
- spending without borrowing
- stemming disinflationary pressures
- stimulus (*)
- supplying banks with extra cash
- supporting the economic recovery
- surreptitious transfer of wealth
- the punch bowl
- the US can always meet its financial obligations that are denominated in US dollars
- throwing money out of helicopters
- trick people into working for lower real wages - See page 9 of Keynes "The General Theory"
- unconventional policy tools
- unconventional monetary policy
- unsterilized intervention
- weakening the dollar
- Not QE
- Nothing like QE
- QE4Ever
- In no sense is this QE
- Not-QE4
- MP1 - Monetary Policy 1
- MP2 - Monetary Policy 2
- MP3 - Monetary Policy 3
Some people try to make a big deal out of the fact that often money is represented on computers and not actually printed. First, the Fed would print paper money if banks wanted delivery from their account. From Bernanke's helicopter paper we know he understands this equivalence from his comment, "But the U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost." Also, from Bernanke's fantastic video we can see the electronic and paper money are essentially the same.
A few of the above terms can also theoretically be used when reducing the money supply but that hardly ever happens.
The point of a euphemism is to make something not sound as bad as it really is. Most of these are trying to hid the badness of "printing money". However, some like "monetary diarrhea" are clearly used by people who are not happy with money printing.
This reminds me of the idea that Eskimos who spend a lot of time on snow would have a lot of words for snow. Seems like Americans spend a lot of time printing new money.
(*) In the case of the starred terms the government is deficit spending, which will lead to more money printing, but it is arguably not a true euphemism for "printing money".
TBTF Bailout
ReplyDeleteBailouts and stimulus are usually counted as "fiscal policy" but since these will clearly lead to more money printing I have added them with a (*) and explanation.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
open market operations
ReplyDeleteadding liquidity
currency intervention
dovish monetary policy
The list goes on and on. I could do this all day.
Higgie
my all time favorite...drum roll..
ReplyDeleteliquidity enhancement
POMO
ReplyDeletedebt securitization
inflation targeting
Liquidity enhancement is still my all time favorite.
Higgie
targeting asset prices
ReplyDeleteHiggie
MBS rollover
ReplyDeleteHiggie
helicopter
ReplyDeleteasset purchases
ReplyDeletemoney rains
monetary policy tools
Bernanke's toolkit
homebuyer tax credit * ?
cash for clunkers * ?
Higgie
Thanks folks! We are at 45 after less than 12 hours. Keep them coming!
ReplyDeletemonetary policy beyond the zero bound
ReplyDeletecreating excess reserves
Higgie
unsterilized intervention
ReplyDeleteHiggie
increasing the monetary base
ReplyDeleteimplementing alternative monetary policy
disbursing currency
distributing new wealth
Higgie
funding the deficit
ReplyDeleteHiggie
easing monetary policy
ReplyDeleteeasy monetary policy
expansionary monetary policy
expanding liquidity
providing liquidity
easing credit conditions (perhaps more of an intended effect)
Higgie
fighting deflation
ReplyDeleteoh, this is my favorite right up there with liquidity enhancement
Higgie
unconventional policy tools
ReplyDeleteHiggie
I'm finally starting to run a little thin on ideas.
achieving price stability
ReplyDeleteHiggie
promoting price stability
ReplyDeleteproviding additional accommodation
Higgie
stemming disinflationary pressures
ReplyDeleteHiggie
We are up to 66. Way to go Higgie!
ReplyDeletehow about "bending over my saved dollar"
ReplyDeletehow about just "cheating"
ReplyDeleteAfter 6 days we have 83! I think we will be past 100 soon.
ReplyDeleteAfter 8 days we have 100!
ReplyDeleteI think "monetary diarrhea" is my new favorite!
ReplyDeleteYou forgot plain old:
ReplyDeletedeficit spending *
You suggest it in the footnote, but it really should be right there in the list directly (starred of course)
Also -- in your footnote you're missing an "r" in the word "starred"
(my favorites: "fighting deflation" and "liquidity enhancement")
Thanks much for both of those. Fixed them.
ReplyDeleteWow! Impressive. Thanks Vince.
ReplyDeleteCreditCrumbs
You have a duplicate -- "helicopter drop" and "throwing money out of helicopters"
ReplyDelete"The world is not overall better off when someone just "makes money out of thin air". Nobody thinks that if a counterfeiter prints money the world is better off."
ReplyDeleteThese two sentences are where you go wrong!
Actually, sometimes the world IS better off when a counterfeiter prints money!
Money is the "lubricant" of the economy. When there isn't enough in circulation among ordinary people, productive activity grinds to a halt. Printing money and getting it into the hands of the lower and middle classes alleviates this problem and gets everyone back to work. *It doesn't matter whether counterfeiters do it or whether the government does*. There is strong evidence that in Victorian England, there were periods where over 20% of the money was counterfeit, and it seems to have actually helped the economy (because monetary policy from the Bank of England was way too tight). Counterfeiters were supplying something the economy needed.
So, yeah, lots of euphemisms for printing money. But printing money, while sometimes bad, is sometimes an unequivocally good thing. Take for the extreme example a society with NO money, a barter society. You print the money, you help the society.
Um, one further, crucial note to what I just wrote about how valuable printing of money is:
ReplyDeleteIt matters who you give the printed money to. It matters a lot.
It only helps if it's going to people who are "cash flow constrained", who can't get people to trade with them because of lack of money.
It doesn't help at all if the printed money is going to banks, who can actually print money on their own just as effectively as the government (start thinking about how they operate and what a "check" really is -- it's money -- you'll figure it out).
The Fed is not printing money and giving it to the lower and middle class people, they give it to the banks. Can we agree that what they really do does not help then?
ReplyDeleteI added "CTRL+P" which people have started using. I like it.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.zerohedge.com/search/apachesolr_search/CTRL%252BP
I think "QE to infinity and beyond" may be my current favorite. It seems funny that Mish, a deflationist, has said this one.
ReplyDeleteWe are now up to 132!
DEFAULT BY STEALTH
ReplyDeleteTell it like it is.
Thanks! I have added it.
Delete