I've been getting some questions from readers wondering about the cost of the not-a-stimulus (it's actually disaster relief) package. "Where's the $2 trillion coming from? Thin air?" Basically, yes 1/
We went through this argument back in 2008-2009, when many people (including some who should have known better) worried that government borrowing was going to "crowd out" private investment. There are times when that happens, but this isn't one of them 2/
In the most immediate sense, the govt is going to borrow the money — and its borrowing costs are near record lows, despite the surging deficit (those recent wiggles are about financial disruption, which the Fed has mostly calmed) 3/ 
But where does the borrowed money come from? Basically, right now we have trillions in private savings with no place to go, because private investment demand isn't sufficient to use them; who's going to invest in the face of a plague of unknown duration? 4/
So government borrowing just draws on this pool of excess savings. Furthermore, in so doing it helps prevent an even steeper economic contraction 5/
