The Fed Should Hand Out Wads of Cash to Everyone

The case is pretty easy to summarize: Most of the economy is consumer spending, so with median incomes flat, the only way to keep economic growth going is by increasing household debt. But that's unsustainable, since you eventually reach a point when everyone realizes that they can't take on anymore debt. Consumers then pull back their spending and aggregate demand collapses, causing a recession that is hard to recover from because consumers are buried under big debt overhangs. You can't spend if you don't have a job and are underwater on your mortgage.