If you want freedom, you need sound money.
So, argues economist Ludwig von Mises.
It is impossible to grasp the meaning of the idea of sound money if one does not realize that it was devised as an instrument for the protection of civil liberties against despotic inroads on the part of governments. Ideologically it belongs in the same class with political constitutions and bills of right.”
According to the seasonally adjusted data, M2 expanded by $59B in March. While the money supply is expanding, this is the slowest increase since June of 2021. It’s also almost $200B less than the $238B expansion last March.
No doubt, money supply growth is decelerating but is still far from contractionary.
According to the seasonally adjusted data, M2 expanded by $83billion in February. January was revised down from $245 billion to $176 billion.
According to the seasonally adjusted data, M2 expanded by $245 billion in January. However, when looking at the raw, non-seasonally adjusted M2 data, the money supply contracted by $214 billion. That would be the largest contraction since Jan 2013.
How do we parse out this data?
M2 increased by $201 billion in December.
This represents a 0.94% MoM increase which annualizes to 11.9%. For the entire year of 2021, M2 grew by an incredible $2.5 trillion or 13.1%!
This is extremely rapid money supply growth! The Fed can taper their asset purchases, but shrinking the Money Supply is the only way to rein in inflation.
Despite talk about a war on inflation and a quantitative easing taper, the money supply continues to expand at a rapid clip, fanning the inflationary fire.
M2 increased by $249.2B in November.
The Fed added $82 billion in Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS) and $65 billion in Treasuries to its balance sheet while allowing $22 billion in repo agreements to roll off the balance sheet. The net gain was $126 billion in the month that the “taper” was set to begin.
So much for fighting inflation.
Despite the Fed’s announcement that quantitative easing tapering would begin this month, money supply growth appears to be accelerating.
In the latest period, M2 increased by $193 billion, eclipsing the $21 trillion mark. This represents a 0.91% month-on-month increase. That annualizes to 11.6%. This is above the six-month average indicating money supply growth is accelerating.
In the latest period, M2 increased by $163 billion and sits just shy of $21 trillion. This represents a 0.78% MoM increase which annualizes to 9.8%. This is below last month’s rise of $254B and last September’s rise of $223B.
The Fed keeps talk, talk, talking about tapering quantitative easing, but the balance sheet continues to get bigger and bigger and bigger.
The Fed balance sheet stands at $8.45 trillion, up by$115 billion from the prior month-end.
