Why central banks are talking about throwing money from helicopters

The evocative concept of helicopter money comes from Milton Friedman, the father of monetarism, who mused in 1969 that central bankers could never fail to boost the money supply since they could always drop newly printed bills from the sky onto the cash-starved economy below. The idea cropped up again in the early 2000s, as economists puzzled over how to spring the Japanese economy from its deflationary trap. Ben Bernanke, at the time a new governor at the Federal Reserve, made reference to Friedman’s conceit in speeches about dispelling deflation, earning himself the nickname “Helicopter Ben”. Advocates of helicopter money do not really intend to throw money out of aircraft .... http://www.economist.com