The problem with a fixed M0 is that broad money (credit and debt based on the money) can fluctuate, causing deflation. Deflation makes people delay on investments, which causes a recession, and more deflation. It's a vicious cycle. That's basically how the Great Depression happened.
The GFC was a similar crisis, but the Fed was able to quantitatively ease the US out of it. OK, things were still pretty dire, but given how much debt there was (as a result of the debt bubble which had kept the economy going gangbusters for so long) it wasn't as bad as it could have been.
Austrians (Ron Paul) say things like "that's bad - the Fed shouldn't be able to rescue the economy, because that will force the bankers to act like grown-ups". Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. The bankers will still take massive risks, and crash the economy every now and then, and the Fed won't be able to help.
Of course, there's reasons to be concerned about the US economy. IIRC, real median wages haven't grown much since the 80s. Basically all the growth has been the rich getting richer. But I don't think that's because of inflation, so much as general policies which favor GPD growth over raising median wages. The US is not a country which cares about the poor, and outsourcing has weakened poor Americans' bargaining power. With the rise of China, that might change (Chinese wages are rising quite quickly, which will make US workers more competitive, which will allow them to demand higher wages). Whatever the case, I don't think it's all the fault of inflationary monetary policy.
And no, I don't blame robots. If robots were taking all the jobs, they wouldn't be going to China. Maybe they will take all the jobs one day, but currently more robots means cheaper products, which means more jobs. Also, before anyone says "the jobs will just go to Africa", they better consider the challenges in building infrastructure there, the fact that Africa is quite diverse (there won't be 200 million peasants all swarming to special economic zones within a decade), and the added demand from all the newly wealthy (or at least, not piss-poor) Chinese.
The GFC was a similar crisis, but the Fed was able to quantitatively ease the US out of it. OK, things were still pretty dire, but given how much debt there was (as a result of the debt bubble which had kept the economy going gangbusters for so long) it wasn't as bad as it could have been.
Austrians (Ron Paul) say things like "that's bad - the Fed shouldn't be able to rescue the economy, because that will force the bankers to act like grown-ups". Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. The bankers will still take massive risks, and crash the economy every now and then, and the Fed won't be able to help.
Of course, there's reasons to be concerned about the US economy. IIRC, real median wages haven't grown much since the 80s. Basically all the growth has been the rich getting richer. But I don't think that's because of inflation, so much as general policies which favor GPD growth over raising median wages. The US is not a country which cares about the poor, and outsourcing has weakened poor Americans' bargaining power. With the rise of China, that might change (Chinese wages are rising quite quickly, which will make US workers more competitive, which will allow them to demand higher wages). Whatever the case, I don't think it's all the fault of inflationary monetary policy.
And no, I don't blame robots. If robots were taking all the jobs, they wouldn't be going to China. Maybe they will take all the jobs one day, but currently more robots means cheaper products, which means more jobs. Also, before anyone says "the jobs will just go to Africa", they better consider the challenges in building infrastructure there, the fact that Africa is quite diverse (there won't be 200 million peasants all swarming to special economic zones within a decade), and the added demand from all the newly wealthy (or at least, not piss-poor) Chinese.