St Louis Monetary Base.

You might like to see this. Scary.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/BASE

 

As far as I know this isn't an inflationary issue until rates rise. The fed will be in a tight spot after 2013 or whenever they abandon their zirp. They will have to balance contracting the mb with increases in rates.

Treasury bill yields and monetary base consistent with price stability
0.03%: $2.60 trillion
0.25%: $1.92 trillion
0.50%: $1.68 trillion
0.75%: $1.54 trillion
1.00%: $1.44 trillion
1.25%: $1.36 trillion
1.50%: $1.30 trillion
1.75%: $1.24 trillion
2.00%: $1.20 trillion
2.25%: $1.16 trillion
2.50%: $1.12 trillion

http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc110411.htm

 

Scary? Relate that graph to a graph of worldwide production output.

Production grows much faster.

 

How much of that production is American?

 

Old, but the most objective source I could find: China set to surpass U.S. as top manufacturer


Of note:

The modern obsession with manufacturing resembles that of the earlier Physiocrats with agriculture.
I don't often agree with Hayek & Co, but their single most incisive economic insight is that if a person wants to pay for it, it has value. Period, the end. This business of trying to make manufacturing a fetishistic sort of measure of success is just stupid.

 

They can print it, but it's not going to do a whole lot if it's just sitting in the vault, propping up the bank

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/M1V?cid=32242