Actually fiat had a very good pandemic, which may yet come to bite us, I agree.
Maybe they would have gotten away with it if they hadn't put their hands in the cookie jar back in 08 and suddenly become socialist with public money in bailing out corporates.
It did indeed seem that there was a "money tree" with no difficulty at all in bailing out the affected sectors of our society with no immediate impact on the rest of us.
The application of QE is not equitable - something that's recognised by way of the Cantillon Effect. As regards the money that made it directly into the hands of the public, you're seeing the symptoms of that already. A year ago here, there was discussion about inflation. Others were saying there was no validity to the inflationary claims. Some months later, the FED started talking about 'transitory inflation' - but once prices go up, they're not coming down again. There's no such thing as a free lunch - so ordinary people will foot the bill. The savvy billionaire set won't.
Can you begin to imagine how this would have panned out if there was a fixed money supply ala bitcoin or for that matter gold?
I recognise that there are advantages and disadvantages to every system. What you have failed to do from the very beginning of this debate is recognise that it doesn't have to be a zero sum game. You seem to be anti-choice and I would say that there has rarely been an occasion when choice has been a bad thing for society. Bitcoin can exist alongside fiat currency. It can act as an incentive for the proper management of fiat currency because as you have acknowledged yourself, there are a whole host of currencies at any given time which are being mismanaged.
a fear that put stocks and bitcoin into freefall in the early months of 2020, until fiat came to the rescue.
I'd suggest you ponder that statement a little longer. There were many folks in Weimar Germany who thought they were doing fabulously ...until they weren't. I wouldn't be so proud of that statement if I was in your shoes and trying to defend fiat. The FED has been propping up the markets for years - for the benefit of some. The conventional market has in no way behaved normally. It's been manipulated. My most recent point re. the state buying its own bonds stands testiment to this manipulation also.
Your narrative is that this was done for the benefit of billionaires.
My view is that it has been inequitable. You're the only one that I've ever seen contest the charge that QE has been anything but equitable in its application - as per the Cantillon Effect.
If this works out (it mightn't; cultists can still dream) the pandemic will go down as a poster boy for the benefits of fiat to society.
By your own admission a long time ago, we have never been here before - so you don't know that and can't say it with certainty. *Maybe* a decade long run of inflation ( a la 1970s ) will allow them to reel it in ( in which case ordinary people will have their savings vapourised ). But otherwise, your Fed/ECB are on crack when it comes to money printing. They've started and they won't be able to stop.