The Real M1 and M2 Money Supply

Yves at Naked Capitalism recently detailed the steep drop in the M3 Money Supply, but rewinding a month back, she first asked Does M1 and M2 Contraction Signal Debt Deflation? Specifically:

Many have criticized the Fed for "printing money" of late. But the evidence suggests otherwise. First, all of the cash injections that the central bank has undertaken via its alphabet soup of new lending facilities have been met with roughly equal withdrawals though open market operations. Thus the new facilities themselves have not led to monetary expansion.

Looking below at the real M1 / M2 money supply (the supply discounted by the CPI Index), we can see that the historical "real" increase in the M1/M2 money supply has all, but ceased since the credit contraction set in a year ago (it has actually decreased).

Zooming in...



More fodder for the deflation side of the growing inflation / deflation debate.

Source: Federal Reserve