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      08-16-2007, 09:43 AM   #30
Big Red One
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Okay Nixon, I think I'm still with you.

So M0 is actual physical cash, travelers' checks in people's hands, etc.. M1 is M0 plus the cash in people's bank accounts, physical cash in safes, vaults, etc.. M2 is M1 plus C/Ds less than $100,000. And then M3 is M2 plus C/Ds greater than $100,000.

So if the Federal Reserve (that's the more accurate way of putting it, right? The Fed makes these decisions, not the president, though the president appoints the Fed Chief) is printing extra cash and stashing it in M3 where it can't be measured, that means they have to be stashing it in large, long-term C/Ds. So how is the Fed getting that cash that they print into the economy? It's not like the cash fairly is putting a few thousand extra dollars into people's C/Ds at night.

If the government goes and prints a bunch of extra cash, it can't have an inflationary effect until it's actually in circulation. That's what I'm having a hard time understanding. How are they getting it into the economy, and how are they getting it specifically into the unmeasured M3 portion of the economy?
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