{"id":53109,"date":"2016-06-13T01:01:42","date_gmt":"2016-06-12T23:01:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/strategie\/how-helicopter-money-works\/"},"modified":"2019-12-31T00:49:40","modified_gmt":"2019-12-30T23:49:40","slug":"how-helicopter-money-works","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/strategie\/how-helicopter-money-works\/","title":{"rendered":"How helicopter money works"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li> <strong>We equate \u2018helicopter money\u2019 with monetary financing. On an ex<br \/>\npost basis, the UK, US and Japan can be thought to have<br \/>\nexperienced de facto monetary financing already, and it didn\u2019t come<br \/>\nwith an explosion of inflation. The evidence doesn\u2019t suggest that<br \/>\nnew helicopter money, if implemented, would spark inflation either.<\/li>\n<li> Monetary financing isn\u2019t a wacky new policy and is easy to<br \/>\nunderstand once you look at \u2018money\u2019 the right way. We should treat<br \/>\ngovernment debt and taxation as two forms of monetary sterilisation<br \/>\nrather than financing operations.<\/li>\n<li> There are not clear advantages to announcing a policy of<br \/>\nhelicopter money over announcing a traditional debt-sterilised fiscal<br \/>\nexpansion. Indeed, it could end up being a backwards step.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Central banks in Europe and Japan have experimented in recent<br \/>\nquarters with slightly negative interest rates. In doing so they have<br \/>\nbroken what many had assumed was a zero lower bound for<br \/>\nnominal interest rates, and also given some indication as to where<br \/>\nthe true lower bound may lie (which is to say around where rates<br \/>\nnow sit). The question as to how central banks will respond to the<br \/>\nnext recession has arisen amongst academics and investors.<\/p>\n<p>One option being discussed is \u2018helicopter money\u2019. Helicopter money<br \/>\nrefers to the situation where a central bank finances the fiscal<br \/>\nexpenditure of a government. Or in common parlance, the<br \/>\ngovernment prints money instead of raising taxes or debt to fund<br \/>\nspending. To many this evokes the sort of policy that brought hyperinflation to Zimbabwe or the Weimar Republic \u2013 and as such provokes meaningful alarm.<br \/>\nIn this piece I will outline why the implementation of quantitative easing during periods of fiscal<br \/>\nexpansion in the UK, US and Japan have effectively already delivered ex post helicopter<br \/>\nmoney, and why true helicopter money appears less attractive as a policy option than additional<br \/>\nlevels of traditional debt-financed fiscal expansion, supplemented if need be by further<br \/>\nquantitative easing. But in order to make this clear, it is necessary to look at what money<br \/>\nactually is and how it works.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What is money?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We tend to think of money in the bank and money in our wallets as the same thing. That we do<br \/>\nso attests to the success of the monetary system in place. Rather than both being money, one<br \/>\n(the bank deposit) is \u2018Inside Money\u2019, while the other (the bank note) is \u2018Outside Money\u2019. These<br \/>\nare not fungible and are instead like oil and water. Inside (bank) Money is imagined into<br \/>\nexistence by banks in the process of creating a loan. Outside (government) Money is imagined<br \/>\ninto existence by the monetary sovereign (in the case of UK, the US or Japan, this is the<br \/>\ngovernment).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Inside Money<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Imagine that you go to your local high street bank for a loan. In granting the loan the bank<br \/>\ncreates a deposit in your account. This deposit is a liability on the bank\u2019s balance sheet against<br \/>\nwhich it holds an asset (a loan to you). If you choose to transfer your (borrowed) deposit to<br \/>\nanother depositor of the same bank (let\u2019s say, if you bought a house from me and I was also a<br \/>\ncustomer of the same bank), the liability (eg, the deposit) never leaves the bank. If you transfer<br \/>\nmy (borrowed) deposit to a depositor of another bank, your bank would need to settle the<br \/>\ntransfer (at the BoE) \u2013 but the liability would never leave the banking system. And so, Inside<br \/>\nMoney exists only on a bank ledger and can never take physical form. Inside Money, to be<br \/>\nspecific and a trifle more technical, is the short-dated liability of the banking system. Changes in<br \/>\nbank lending practices do not change Outside Money a jot.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Outside Money<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Outside money (government money) is money that is imagined into existence not by a bank<br \/>\nmaking a loan, but by the monetary sovereign (in the case of the UK, US or Japan, this is the<br \/>\ngovernment) making a payment. It is like an undated government IOU.<\/p>\n<p>Imagine that a government pays a civil servant. As the monetary sovereign they can do so by<br \/>\ncreating brand new Outside Money. The government then typically seeks to destroy an equal<br \/>\namount of Outside Money to offset this monetary expansion, and this process of money<br \/>\ndestruction is called monetary sterilisation. Why do governments sterilise their money creation?<br \/>\nThe typical answer is to maintain confidence in the currency. After all, if a government went out<br \/>\nincreasing the stock of outside money exponentially it is quite conceivable that recipients might<br \/>\nbegin to become concerned that this Outside Money may not be a good store of value and so<br \/>\nseek to turn it into goods and services at higher prices (and so lack of confidence could show up<br \/>\nin the form of inflation), or they could seek to turn it into other peoples\u2019 currency (and as such<br \/>\nshow up in currency depreciation) or real assets (and as such show up in real asset inflation).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Figure 1: How Outside Money is created and removed from the economy<\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.next-finance.net\/http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_1-_how_outside_money_is_created_and_removed_from_the_economy.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\" aligncenter size-full wp-image-53101\" src=\"IMG\/jpg\/figure_1-_how_outside_money_is_created_and_removed_from_the_economy.jpg\" alt=\"figure_1-_how_outside_money_is_created_and_removed_from_the_economy.jpg\" align=\"center\" width=\"864\" height=\"787\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Figure 1 shows stylized balance sheets of the non-bank private sector (of which the civil servant<br \/>\nis part), the commercial banking system, the central bank and the government before this<br \/>\nhypothetical civil servant is paid (column 1), immediately after but before the money is pulled<br \/>\nback out of the system (column 2), and then after the two different forms of monetary<br \/>\nsterilisation (columns 3a and 3b).<\/p>\n<p>The government has two routes to sterilise the monetary expansion. First, it can issue debt in<br \/>\nthe form of new bonds to the private sector (column 3a). By selling bonds to the private sector<br \/>\nthe government will successfully take the new Outside Money out of circulation, and replace this<br \/>\nOutside Money with bonds that cannot be so easily spent. Secondly, a government can tax<br \/>\n(column 3b). Taxation is a form of monetary sterilisation \u2013 with tax revenues effectively torn up<br \/>\nin order to maintain confidence in the currency. In the UK, by virtue of having signed the<br \/>\nMaastricht Treaty, the sterilisation action will always happen simultaneously or before the<br \/>\npayment to the civil servant. But this outline of how Outside Money works remains valid.<\/p>\n<p>Figure 1 illustrates not only how Outside Money works, but also a couple of other things. Firstly,<br \/>\nit shows why it is peculiar to worry about debt sustainability from a fiscal (rather than a<br \/>\nmonetary) perspective. Government debt can be seen to be no more than an instrument for<br \/>\nmonetary sterilisation: a means by which zero-coupon perpetual government IOUs (Outside<br \/>\nMoney) are removed from circulation and replaced with interest-bearing government IOUs with<br \/>\na specified maturity (although they will at that point again become perpetual zero-coupon<br \/>\ngovernment IOUs). The prospect that a monetary sovereign might be unable to sell government<br \/>\nbonds is real, but untroubling from a financing perspective; the prospect of a bond market strike<br \/>\nis instead troubling only from a monetary perspective.<\/p>\n<p>Secondly it illustrates that when debt-sterilising rather than tax-sterilising, the private sector<br \/>\nends up with a larger balance sheet. Government bonds are treated as assets, although they<br \/>\nare claims against the rest of the non-bank private sector who don\u2019t own bonds. Given that<br \/>\ntaxation tends to be progressive in democracies, it would appear likely that the distributional<br \/>\nconsequences of debt sterilising rather than tax sterilising would be to leave upper deciles of the<br \/>\nincome distribution holding more bonds and having paid fewer taxes. That is to say, that there<br \/>\nwill likely be higher levels of wealth inequality under a government that prefers to maintain<br \/>\nconfidence in the currency via debt sterilisation, all else equal.<\/p>\n<p>Now that Outside Money has been outlined, with debt issuance and taxation explained as<br \/>\ninstruments of monetary sterilisation, quantitative easing can be seen to be a pretty<br \/>\nstraightforward reverse-sterilisation operation. As government bonds are bought by the central<br \/>\nbank, so the monetary base (in the form of Reserves and Currency, eg Outside Money)<br \/>\nbecomes inflated. While the bonds are held by the central bank they are effectively cancelled:<br \/>\nthey do not perform their monetary sterilisation duties and there is no net interest cost of holding<br \/>\nthem to HM Treasury over and above the cost of remunerating holders of Reserves (which<br \/>\nwould need to occur even if cancelled). <\/p>\n<p>Figure 2 helps show the relative scale of Inside and Outside Money. The dark blue section<br \/>\nshows M4 as a percentage of GDP as a decent proxy for Inside Money and the light blue<br \/>\nsection shows Outside Money as a percentage of GDP. Two things jump out. First, there is a lot<br \/>\nmore Inside Money than Outside Money. Secondly, the acceleration in growth of Inside Money<br \/>\nwas spectacular in the years leading up to the Global Financial Crisis, and the collapse<br \/>\nthereafter has been precipitous. The expansion of Outside Money in the form of QE has but<br \/>\ncushioned this contraction in the money stock.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Figure 2: UK Inside and Outside Money 1986-2016<\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.next-finance.net\/http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_2_-_uk_inside_and_outside_money_1986-2016.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\" aligncenter size-full wp-image-53103\" src=\"IMG\/jpg\/figure_2_-_uk_inside_and_outside_money_1986-2016.jpg\" alt=\"figure_2_-_uk_inside_and_outside_money_1986-2016.jpg\" align=\"center\" width=\"972\" height=\"566\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>With circa 250% debt to GDP many have asked whether Japan\u2019s debts are too big to ever<br \/>\nrepay (Figure 3). Government debt is rarely repaid. Bonds issued to sterilise a government\u2019s<br \/>\nfiscal expenditure mature and are typically repaid by the proceeds of issuance of new bonds. <\/p>\n<p>And so the debt issued by the British government to finance the Napoleonic Wars has never<br \/>\nbeen repaid. But pursuing this line is to miss the point.<\/p>\n<p>We have already seen that government debt is no more than an instrument for monetary<br \/>\nsterilisation: it is a means of reducing the number of IOUs in the system, by replacing them with<br \/>\nlong-dated IOUs that can\u2019t be easily spent. As such, the issue of debt to GDP should not be<br \/>\nseen as a fiscal constraint: a government can\u2019t run out of government IOUs. That said,<br \/>\nuncontrolled debt growth could conceivably become a medium-term threat to monetary stability<br \/>\n(eg, people might stop accepting government IOUs as payment). Uncontrolled debt growth<br \/>\ncomes with the uncontrolled growth in debt service obligations. And these debt service<br \/>\nobligations come in the form of the creation of more Outside Money which in turn needs to be<br \/>\nsterilised.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Figure 3: UK government debt to GDP \/ Japan government debt to GDP<\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.next-finance.net\/http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_3_-_uk_government_debt_to_gdp_-_japan_government_debt_to_gdp.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\" aligncenter size-full wp-image-53105\" src=\"IMG\/jpg\/figure_3_-_uk_government_debt_to_gdp_-_japan_government_debt_to_gdp.jpg\" alt=\"figure_3_-_uk_government_debt_to_gdp_-_japan_government_debt_to_gdp.jpg\" align=\"center\" width=\"1007\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Despite high levels of debt to GDP, Japan\u2019s debt service costs are today amongst the lowest in<br \/>\nthe world, owing to low interest rates. In a scenario where inflation rises and policymakers want<br \/>\ninterest rates to rise, the stock of debt could become problematic (as maturing debt is<br \/>\nrefinanced with bonds carrying higher coupons) if nominal GDP growth is sufficiently absent (so<br \/>\nthat debt-to-GDP rises ever-higher). Essentially, the threat to Japanese monetary sustainability<br \/>\nfrom its stock of government debt is the threat that people will stop accepting yen from the<br \/>\ngovernment as payment. As long as the government has the power to enforce demand for yen<br \/>\nin the form of a requirement to pay taxes, this possibility appears de <em>minimis<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>We have seen that when a central bank purchases government debt it unwinds past monetary<br \/>\nsterilisations. Debt bought by the central bank is effectively cancelled for the duration of the QE<br \/>\nprogramme. In the two charts within Figure 3 we can see the degree to which these QE<br \/>\nprogrammes have impacted the UK and Japanese government\u2019s debt to GDP metrics. In the<br \/>\ncase of the UK, the QE programme (running contiguously with fiscal expansion) had the effect<br \/>\nof helicopter money. This can be seen from Figure 4.<\/p>\n<p>The table outlines the impacts of QE, of helicopter money (where debt is purchased by the<br \/>\ncentral bank and written-off), and a combination of QE and fiscal expansion. Given that debt is<br \/>\neffectively cancelled from the moment it is bought by the central bank from a monetary and<br \/>\nfiscal perspective, the debt service and monetary effects of QE and helicopter money appear<br \/>\nthe same.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Figure 4: Comparing quantitative easing, helicopter money, and fiscal expansion<br \/>\ncombined with quantitative easing<\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.next-finance.net\/http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_4_-_comparing_quantitative_easing_helicopter_money_and_fiscal_expansion.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\" aligncenter size-full wp-image-53107\" src=\"IMG\/jpg\/figure_4_-_comparing_quantitative_easing_helicopter_money_and_fiscal_expansion.jpg\" alt=\"figure_4_-_comparing_quantitative_easing_helicopter_money_and_fiscal_expansion.jpg\" align=\"center\" width=\"1027\" height=\"590\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The big difference arises when it comes again to tighten policy. By cancelling government<br \/>\nbonds bought, the central bank cannot so simply resterilise the unsterilised Outside Money<br \/>\nstock. If it wishes to calm inflation quantitatively it can auction central bank bills, term deposits<br \/>\nand implement reverse repo programmes, all of which put upward pressure on shorter-term<br \/>\ninterest rates. And so it is left with the option of either raising short-term rates by more than they<br \/>\nwould otherwise need to rise under the QE scenario, or persuading the government to gift the<br \/>\ncentral bank with large amounts of government debt that it can then sell to the market (which<br \/>\nmay be tricky politically).<\/p>\n<p>The economic effects of quantitative easing are still being debated, but it is fair to say that they<br \/>\nare presumed to be positive to date. In the case of helicopter money, there would be a direct<br \/>\nfiscal expansion financed by central bank purchase of (and cancellation of) government bonds. <\/p>\n<p>This direct fiscal spend would be economically expansionary, unless the announcement of<br \/>\nhelicopter money represented a shock to households and firms that was sufficiently significant<br \/>\nto offset the fiscal stimulus. The economic effects of fiscal expansion combined with new<br \/>\nquantitative easing appear identical to those of helicopter money.<\/p>\n<p>The market effect of the recent experience of QE has been lower discount rates, a weaker<br \/>\ncurrency, and a strong environment for risk assets. We might guess that the market\u2019s reaction<br \/>\nto helicopter money would be similar, but given that past episodes of dominance by the fiscal<br \/>\nauthority over the central bank have been associated with fiscal indiscipline and high inflation,<br \/>\nthere is a reasonable chance that markets could react in a meaningfully different and negative<br \/>\nway. The truth is that we just don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Hyperinflation<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Helicopter money is often associated with incidence of hyperinflation. In their study of the 56<br \/>\nincidents of world hyperinflation during the last 300 years, Hanke and Krus found hyperinflation<br \/>\nto be \u2018an economic malady that arises under extreme conditions: war, political mismanagement,<br \/>\nand the transition from a command to market-based economy to name a few\u2019. By contrast,<br \/>\nmonetary financing has been used widely in the developed and developing world over time<br \/>\nwithout ending in hyperinflation.<\/p>\n<p>Until the US Fed Accord in 1951 the US operated a policy of fixing long-term bond yields, and<br \/>\nas such expanding or contracting Outside Money depending on private sector demand for these<br \/>\ninstruments. Canada used monetary financing for 40 years until 1975 under a free-floating<br \/>\nexchange rate regime without calamitous macroeconomic effects, and India operated a policy of<br \/>\ndebt monetisation until 2006. Further examples abound. Indeed, of the 152 central bank legal<br \/>\nframeworks analysed by the IMF, 101 permitted monetary financing in 2012. This is not to say<br \/>\nthat helicopter money is a desirable policy. It would be, in the opinion of this author, a<br \/>\nbackwards step. But neither is it to be necessarily associated with hyperinflation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>With the unknown market impact of helicopter money, with prospective policy tools in the hands<br \/>\nof central banks narrowed through debt cancellation, and with the economic benefits associated<br \/>\nwith helicopter money rather than straight fiscal expansion de <em>minimis<\/em>, it is not clear why<br \/>\npolicymakers will choose the path of helicopter money. Perhaps the real lesson is that monetary<br \/>\npolicy has its limits and that in the event of an economic slowdown, aggregate demand is best<br \/>\nsupported by fiscal rather than monetary policy. In the event that new fiscal expansion requires<br \/>\nsupplemental monetary support in the form of additional QE, that is a decision that could be<br \/>\nmade at some point in the future.<\/p>\n<p>So, in conclusion, helicopter money is not a weird and wacky new form of money. Indeed, once<br \/>\nwe understand how money works helicopter money looks pretty straightforward. The<br \/>\nprospective economic, monetary and fiscal effects of helicopter money (absent the stickershock<br \/>\nof a new unfamiliar policy being implemented) look identical to a normal fiscal expansion<br \/>\nsupplemented with additional QE. As such, it could be argued that the UK, US, and Japan have<br \/>\nall already effectively experienced helicopter money. It is harder to say the same about the<br \/>\nEurozone, consisting as it does of government entities that are not monetary sovereigns. Indeed,<br \/>\nthe Eurozone is much more complicated.<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-53109 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-herald-lay-c1'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a class=\"herald-popup\" href='http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_1-_how_outside_money_is_created_and_removed_from_the_economy.jpg'><img width=\"470\" height=\"313\" src=\"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_1-_how_outside_money_is_created_and_removed_from_the_economy-470x313.jpg\" class=\"attachment-herald-lay-c1 size-herald-lay-c1\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_1-_how_outside_money_is_created_and_removed_from_the_economy-470x313.jpg 470w, http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_1-_how_outside_money_is_created_and_removed_from_the_economy-300x200.jpg 300w, http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_1-_how_outside_money_is_created_and_removed_from_the_economy-414x276.jpg 414w, http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_1-_how_outside_money_is_created_and_removed_from_the_economy-640x426.jpg 640w, http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_1-_how_outside_money_is_created_and_removed_from_the_economy-130x86.jpg 130w, http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_1-_how_outside_money_is_created_and_removed_from_the_economy-187x124.jpg 187w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 470px) 100vw, 470px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a class=\"herald-popup\" href='http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_2_-_uk_inside_and_outside_money_1986-2016.jpg'><img width=\"470\" height=\"313\" src=\"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_2_-_uk_inside_and_outside_money_1986-2016-470x313.jpg\" class=\"attachment-herald-lay-c1 size-herald-lay-c1\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_2_-_uk_inside_and_outside_money_1986-2016-470x313.jpg 470w, http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_2_-_uk_inside_and_outside_money_1986-2016-300x200.jpg 300w, http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_2_-_uk_inside_and_outside_money_1986-2016-414x276.jpg 414w, http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_2_-_uk_inside_and_outside_money_1986-2016-640x426.jpg 640w, http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_2_-_uk_inside_and_outside_money_1986-2016-130x86.jpg 130w, http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_2_-_uk_inside_and_outside_money_1986-2016-187x124.jpg 187w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 470px) 100vw, 470px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a class=\"herald-popup\" href='http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_3_-_uk_government_debt_to_gdp_-_japan_government_debt_to_gdp.jpg'><img width=\"470\" height=\"313\" src=\"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_3_-_uk_government_debt_to_gdp_-_japan_government_debt_to_gdp-470x313.jpg\" class=\"attachment-herald-lay-c1 size-herald-lay-c1\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_3_-_uk_government_debt_to_gdp_-_japan_government_debt_to_gdp-470x313.jpg 470w, http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_3_-_uk_government_debt_to_gdp_-_japan_government_debt_to_gdp-300x200.jpg 300w, http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_3_-_uk_government_debt_to_gdp_-_japan_government_debt_to_gdp-414x276.jpg 414w, http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_3_-_uk_government_debt_to_gdp_-_japan_government_debt_to_gdp-640x426.jpg 640w, http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_3_-_uk_government_debt_to_gdp_-_japan_government_debt_to_gdp-130x86.jpg 130w, http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_3_-_uk_government_debt_to_gdp_-_japan_government_debt_to_gdp-187x124.jpg 187w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 470px) 100vw, 470px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a class=\"herald-popup\" href='http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_4_-_comparing_quantitative_easing_helicopter_money_and_fiscal_expansion.jpg'><img width=\"470\" height=\"313\" src=\"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_4_-_comparing_quantitative_easing_helicopter_money_and_fiscal_expansion-470x313.jpg\" class=\"attachment-herald-lay-c1 size-herald-lay-c1\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_4_-_comparing_quantitative_easing_helicopter_money_and_fiscal_expansion-470x313.jpg 470w, http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_4_-_comparing_quantitative_easing_helicopter_money_and_fiscal_expansion-300x200.jpg 300w, http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_4_-_comparing_quantitative_easing_helicopter_money_and_fiscal_expansion-414x276.jpg 414w, http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_4_-_comparing_quantitative_easing_helicopter_money_and_fiscal_expansion-640x426.jpg 640w, http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_4_-_comparing_quantitative_easing_helicopter_money_and_fiscal_expansion-130x86.jpg 130w, http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/figure_4_-_comparing_quantitative_easing_helicopter_money_and_fiscal_expansion-187x124.jpg 187w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 470px) 100vw, 470px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Monetary financing isn\u2019t a wacky new policy and is easy to<br \/>\nunderstand once you look at \u2018money\u2019 the right way. We should treat<br \/>\ngovernment debt and taxation as two forms of monetary sterilisation<br \/>\nrather than financing operations. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53101,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1483],"tags":[1809,1655,2073,1943,1651,1807,2087,2068],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53109"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53109"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53110,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53109\/revisions\/53110"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}