In 2008 during the Great Recession, the Federal Reserve began a policy called "quantitative easing" or "QE." This involved creating trillions of dollars of new money to purchase debt, stocks, and toxic assets like risky subprime mortgages from governments, banks, and other corporations. The Fed stopped QE in 2014 and launched it again in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result, the Fed's assets grew from around $1 trillion in 2007 to nearly $9 trillion in 2022. The Fed has since unwound some of these actions, and the current balance stands at $7.5 trillion. This conjured money can decrease the value of people's income and savings by inflating the prices they pay for goods and services. It can also cause asset inflation, which increases the wealth of people who already own assets like real estate and stocks, while making these assets less affordable for others.