We hear frequently that the Fed is printing money like crazy these days. This is not quite true. There are various definitions of money: For money that is being printed, one needs to look at currency in circulation, which actually counts all printed banknotes less those that have not left the Fed’s vaults. So, has the money in circulation increased like crazy since the start of the latest recession? The currency in circulation (technically called the currency component of M1) is indeed increasing, but there is no indication that it is accelerating. To see this, we have taken the natural logarithm of the series. This ... (full story)