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21 sats \ 2 replies \ @denlillaapan OP 22 Oct \ parent \ on: MONEY CLASS OF THE DAY: The Fed Did NOT Grow Money Supply 4x During the Pandemic econ
No, it's merely a classification; statisticians say things.
Assets have "moneyness" -- think of them as a sliding scale of how much moneyness they have.
In the 20th century economists used to think that savings accounts were not money, since spending from them was tricky -- involved fees, took days etc. In modern times, not the case; savings accounts and spending accounts are so blurred among financial institutions and very easy to move between.
The piece is pretty clear on it
https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2021/05/savings-are-now-more-liquid-and-part-of-m1-money/
Thank for that. Explains it clearly.
I'm still a little confused in my mind, why the shift, or why now. Traditionally, savings were not as easy to access. That's easy to understand. But for example, a savings instrument like an ISA (individual-savings-accounts) have certain restrictions for just that reason, your money needs to be locked-up to earn a cerain interest threshold, encouraging to keep deposits in a bank. Or, say some gold holding. I could see that as being potentiallty more liquid today, but still, it would require several days notice in many cases to sell and deposit in a bank account. Also, people would be more reluctant to sell something like that, so I guess it's moneyness (which I understand means currency) would be much lower. So, are we including such things?
Anyway, you don't need to answer that. But I think this is why I feel there's some confusion.
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Moneyness: is just an academic term for how money-like a certain thing is. It's precisely what you're describing: how close to being capable of money services is gold? ISAs? Stocks? Treasury bills? If you're a big bank, you can repo Treasury bills; if you're Apple you can pay with newly printed Apple stocks. Some retail brokerage accounts lets you visa-debit card swipe from your index fund holdings.
It's essentially a measure of liquidity and usage, and it's veeeery arbitrary.
I can't account for the shift, either. My best guess is that it's a bureaucratic-statistical decision and it was time. The timing -- mid-pandemic -- was of course awful and has confused looots of people.
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