Like the author says, quantitative easing isn't complicated. Only the name is. Because the name is pure obfuscation. It aims to throw dust in your eyes for a while.
I explained it to my
wife today, for about the 10th time (I think she finally is getting it).
She said, "I don't get it. Didn't the government always print money?" I said
"Well,
the Fed (which is sometimes mistaken for the government because it
works hand in hand with it) always did print money. But traditionally,
it would mostly print money just to keep up with the 2% inflation target
which it set for itself (which it was never tasked with doing) and to
replenished damaged old banknotes. The banks would send their worn out
bills to the Fed and the Fed would send back newly-printed ones--or
newly minted coins as the case may be.
But NOW the Fed is printing vastly more than the amount corresponding to the inflation and the wear and tear on the banknotes.
When
such unbridled printing was tried in the Weimar Republic, it eventually
collapsed the Deutschmark. There is no reason now to suspect that QE,
despite the fancy name, won't have the same effect. Because it is
exactly the same thing."
Don Hank
The Republican dominated U.S. House probably will not accept a clean
spending bill from the Senate, Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said
Thursday.The resistance to accepting an unencumbered spending bill
increases the chance of a federal government shutdown after Sept. 30,
The Hill reported.
A lawsuit challenging Portland's new ban on panhandling in traffic
medians has put the city on the front line of a legal debate over
free-speech rights that is spreading around the country as a growing
number of communities restrict when and where people can ask for money.
