The idea of "free* money reducing inflation" is absurd. Lottery winners go broke, and there is no way that giving out Cash somehow -increases- the value of the Cash people already had.

Maybe it increases the valuation of all those out-of-state banks that CA citizens have to sign on with for their "free" money?

It's not a bad idea:

• it isn't meant to "reduce inflation," it's meant to mitigate the impact of price increases, for consumers

• it is explicitly progressive, benefiting those for whom mandatory expenditures are already difficult to meet

• it doesn't "add money to the system, increasing inflation," it's discretionary spending out of an already-extant budget that might otherwise go to say incentives to the private industry

Related,

It is important to understand that the single biggest driver of consumer-facing inflation today is profit taking. This is intentionally obscured by those who would rather have you blame e.g. labor, for driving up salaries.

Even the fed has repeatedly publicly debunked this, and pointed the finger at corporate behavior.

Isn't inflation caused by the war in Ukraine and the hangover from covid.

Sure someone's making more money, but that happens if prices go up.

>it doesn't "add money to the system, increasing inflation"

It does. Where the money is directed matters. If you spend 1k on computers you push up demand. If you spend 1k researching/building a machine to make computers more efficiently, you can lower the price of computers long term. Yes practically speaking the market trends to sort that out. But new industries often need help to get to a competitive level eg wind turbines and solar, until not so long ago.

That being said, as the inflation is essentially imported, to my mind it's still an open question whether printing money to help in the short term is a net bad thing.

QE generally, pandemic stimulus (in the dumbest, most grift-ridden, and least effective way possible), and fed blundering are all absolutely drivers, so to Saudi attempts to aid the GOP in the elections,

but under such cover the key story of the last 18 months + has been almost entirely been profit-taking.

As with layoffs in the tech industry, those with few morals and a lot of greed duly exploit opportunities as they are presented.

The striking thing about the profiteering going on is how shameless it is, which I personally correlate with the general post-pandemic breakdown of civility, self-restraint, and concern for the common good.

Layoffs are counter inflationary though?!?

What form is this profiteering taking? Are you accusing oil companies of profiteering? Or other company's that are increasing prices or what?

Are you really discounting price increases due to the war in Ukraine? Do you not know what gas prices are in the rest of the world? They've at least tripled here in Europe. That isn't down to QE. And tripling gas prices very definitely leads to higher inflation.

>I haven't read through much of the tangle of "Greens agree to peg Gas prices to Renewable prices" (my recollection) in the UK or elsewhere

What's your point???

>Some Russian was streaming a burning stove 24/7, bragging that it cost like $5 / mo. Can a $500 solar installation boil water 24/7 for the same $5/mo

What's your point? Can you boil water 24/7 for $5 a month? No because you don't live in a gas rich state whose economy depended on gas exports, but has now been cut off from international markets.

>I feel that the energy density of Petroleum (and Nuclear) products is just so ludicrous that Wind and Solar can't compete.

Why is energy density a relevant metric? How do you even want to measure energy density? A wind farm can be used for other things. A nuclear reactor not so much. And yes my uranium handwarmer is nice and compact, but the are reasons why no one else uses one.

It's relief, not reduction. As in, relieving the pain of inflation.