I think it's instructive to set aside money for a minute and think about things in real terms: if we shut things down, then which parts of the economy won't be functioning and what is the cost of that.
For example: suppose hospitality workers are paid to stay at home. How is that paid for? Well actually it's entiely paid for by people having fewer of the hospitality experiences that they are used to. It is obvious when you take money out of the equation that hospitality workers staying at home will not cause there to be any less of essentials such as food and shelter to go around.
There are other sectors like manufacturing where there is a real cost to be paid. But that could be as small as delaying the purchase of the manufactured goods by period of lockdown. No so bad.
Whem you look at it like this way, QE seems entirely justified. All it really does is spread the effects accross the economy to people who can bear them, and avoids financially ruining people which will be a primaey cause of long term economic damage once things reopen.
I'm not concerned about justification for QE, but more about where is the limit of debt you can take on to provide cash to a vast population, and is there a better way to fix things?
I see the problem as a lack of agility of the economy. The hospitality works could have another job, but those jobs can't get created fast enough. How can they get paid by other people rather than the government.
Another question is post-covid do we want to ramp up consumption again. Do we need people flying to hotels to meet up, or will Zoom do? And if Zoom will do, what of the hospitality industry (already taking a stab wound from Airbnb etc.).
They don't need jobs because we don't need those people to work. What we need them to do is stay at home.
There shouldn't need to be any debt involved. It should be as simple as printing money (the central bank can do this) and distributing it to the people who need it. Normally this would cause excessive inflation because it would be injecting extra money into the economy. But it shouldn't in this case because it's injecting money that was already there until very recently.
For example: suppose hospitality workers are paid to stay at home. How is that paid for? Well actually it's entiely paid for by people having fewer of the hospitality experiences that they are used to. It is obvious when you take money out of the equation that hospitality workers staying at home will not cause there to be any less of essentials such as food and shelter to go around.
There are other sectors like manufacturing where there is a real cost to be paid. But that could be as small as delaying the purchase of the manufactured goods by period of lockdown. No so bad.
Whem you look at it like this way, QE seems entirely justified. All it really does is spread the effects accross the economy to people who can bear them, and avoids financially ruining people which will be a primaey cause of long term economic damage once things reopen.