THE term “ helicopter drop” came back to life during the Lesser Depression in the US, which started in 2008 and lingered on to 2011. It simply means dropping money from helicopters into hamlets of poverty for the poor to pick up and spend. Some progressive American economists argued that the best way to stimulate the US economy was to give cash to the poor. Because the root of the problem was on the demand side, aggressive spending by the recipients would boost demand and perk up the dying economic sectors.

And so the term “ helicopter drop” entered the national conversation in the US on how to beat the meltdown. The fact that Ben Bernanke, the Fed Chair during the Lesser Depression mentioned “helicopter drop” in passing in a Nov. 2002 speech on fighting deflation (a few years before 2008) just heightened the interest in “helicopter drop.” Before the Lesser Depression even set in, Bernanke, a respected economist who used to head the Princeton University economics department, was occasionally referred to as “Helicopter Ben.”

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