The FT is continuing to face reality as it considers what to do in the face of the coronavirus crisis. It has an editorial today that concludes:
The scale of today’s downturn means even the most direct monetary financing, such as “helicopter money”, or handing cash to the public, should remain an option.
That’s pretty radical, and I rather strongly suspect suggests that this editorial reflects the views of Martin Wolf, who has always had sympathy with helicopter money, when I have had my doubts, believing it for government to manage our social safety net.
Rather more importantly, they go out of their way to make clear that they support direct monetary funding (DMF) of the government by its central bank. As they say:
There is no clear distinction between quantitative easing and monetary financing.