RE: If the government is printing trillions why is there no hyperinflation?
At the same time, the ultra-rich get access to the Quantitative Easing (QE) and QE-equivalent funds
That's completely false. Nobody gets "access" to funds. The central banks are injecting QE funds in the economy via the markets, by buying assets. It's the strategy they employ when buying assets that decides who gets to benefit from the QE. If they purchase government bonds (a staple of central banks), the gov gets to get plenty of funds to pursue whatever policy it intends on doing, and which social classes this will benefit most depends on what the government's political inclinations are. If they purchase foreign currencies, this allows to pump the price of these currencies, which helps exporters but hurts importers. If they purchase equities, they keep pumping the stock market, and benefit everyone with equity portfolios, mostly upper middle class, wealthy people, investment funds and large corporate share holders. If they purchase junk corporate bonds, they support money borrowing efforts by struggling companies which could help them make the ends meet. But there is no such a thing as "wealthy people having access to QE funds". The reason the lower middle class and lower class don't benefit much from QE is because they don't have enough money to invest in securities, and hold the little reserves they have as fiat, when they are not burdened with debt.
Say I have a family business or a store with turnover of 5mn per year. The government won't be pumping my business. They'll be pumping some big corporation instead by buying their stocks (because the small and mid-sized companies aren't even listed). Why should I, as a medium-to-large size business owner, be forced to buy stocks of some big corp, in order to be pumped by QE? I want to invest in my own business (or receive investment for it) - not go through a circle-jerk pumping round involving big corp stocks that I don't even care about. There is a very clear selection process on what is going to be pumped, and it's not small or mid business.
Likewise, QE money or liquidity injections that find their way into commercial banks, to be loaned, who are they benefiting? If the commercial bank gets access to cheap funding and they are selling it with a good premium on me, who's increasing their money? Me or the big banks? They get 1mn and return 1.01mn to the central bank, I get 1mn from the commercial bank, they want 1.1mn back.... so naturally, the money is working in someone's favor but it's not the little guy here (he loses money, the commercial bank makes money).
I understand your viewpoint that if poor and mid-income people front-run the purchases made by QE funding they may make a buck, but we also have to remember that this requires - as you say - for the low/mid class to actually have money in excess that they can spare, in order to invest. So if they don't (which they don't), then who's getting all the profit? The richer people. The richest you are, the more you can gain from this pumping. And this is by design.
I totally agree that QE benefits disproportionately the wealthy, and even actually takes from the poor to give to the wealthy, and there is very little someone who barely earns a living can do to hedge against that. That's entirely true. I was just reacting to your sentence "the ultra-rich get access to the Quantitative Easing (QE)" that seemed to imply that they had directly access to the funds, and clarifying that the way the ultra-rich benefit is indirect. Of course that doesn't make it any less outrageous.
Thanks for the critical review. I've clarified it accordingly.
That's true for the immediate benefits. However, if those corporations go belly up, jobs are lost. And that affects the little guy in a huge way.
I wouldn't worry that much about it. I mean if a big corp doesn't get pumped on the stock market it doesn't automatically mean it'll fail. Whether a government chooses to buy apple or intel stocks, people will still continue buying iphones and CPUs.
On the other hand, there are quite a few small to mid size businesses that could be improved through investment funding.... (btw these also cause lost jobs if they go belly up - and they are way more vulnerable to extinction).