Consumers avoiding the Fed tax

Consumers Use Free Money to Pay Down Debt

Mish gets this a bit wrong. Here is a better reason:

How Much Are Bank Fees - The Latest MoneyRates Update

Monthly maintenance fees on checking accounts have reached a new high, and so have ATM fees. There are cheaper options, though - so the message for consumers paying those high fees is "move or lose."
Monthly checking account fees now average $14.13, the highest level in the seven-year history of the MoneyRates.com Checking Account Fee Survey. This means the average fee would cost you a total of $169.56 over the course of a year.
Add in ATM fees and overdraft fees, and you could be spending hundreds of dollars just to have a checking account. That actually equates to hundreds of dollars wasted, since there are ways to pay nothing for your checking account.
The latest MoneyRates.com Checking Account Fee Survey shows the widening gulf between free checking and what most accounts actually charge. This survey can help you shop for a cheaper checking account.

These fees are all related to the seigniorage taxes which must be passed down.  The good effect of the stimulus game is to raise taxes so government can pay for all the crap we vote for. The bad news is that the Fed Tax is highly regressive and makes wealth concentration worse.

We would be better off using Congress to tax ourselves. But Fed taxes are perfectly legal and Congress could object at any time.

The Fed's Kashkari gets it exactly backwards:

Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that Americans are saving more because they aren’t going out as much during the pandemic, and as a result there would be less need to borrow from abroad to finance additional fiscal aid.
“So while historically we would worry about racking up too much debt, we’re generating the savings ourselves. That means Congress has the resources to support those who are most hurting,” he said.

“Right now the U.S. can fund itself at very, very low rates. Congress should use this opportunity to support the American people and the American economy.”
“If we were to lock down hard for a month or six weeks, we could get the case count down so that our testing and our contact tracing was actually enough to control it,” Kashkari said.
“If we don’t do that, and we just have this raging virus spread throughout the country with flare-ups and local lockdowns for the next year or two, which is entirely possible, we’re going to see many, many more business bankruptcies.”

He is likely from MIT and cannot close the Lucas criteria loop. That tax comes from somewhere, and generally it comes from exactly the people who get the  money. He can never figure this out if he was flat earthed in college, the mental flaw is permanent.