Spending money is not the path to wealth, and anyone who tells you otherwise is an idiot. I make no exceptions for Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke. No man, and no nation, can spend its way out of debt.
The idea, of course, is that by giving money to consumers to spend in the short term, we will somehow “stimulate” the economy. Orders will need to be filled, they say. But this proposal can do nothing to alleviate the inflationary pressures in the economy. It will simply cause relatively more money to be chasing an unchanged amount of goods and service. (One definition of inflation is “too much money chasing too few goods)
If that money, on the other hand, were able to be saved instead of spent, the savings make their way through investment channels and stimulate production of capital goods, and eventually consumer goods and services. It is always an abundance of goods and services which indicates real wealth.
…But with all of that out of the way, I want my “up to $800″ back. I want it back because it was mine, indeed it is mine, and it should never have been taken to begin with.