Tags
I find this article today. In short, it is complicated.
In my opinion, it is almost insufficient to only consider what the QE3 has brought us without considering the alternative of doing nothing. It is easy, in hindsight, to criticise the Federal Reserve’s QE3 program, but can we really imagine what the world (or the US) would be like without it?
Economists generally love to find a real world example to learn from. In that spirit, I would suggest looking at Europe and Japan. Both, initially, did not embrace aggressive credit stimulus program. Europe is under constant threat of deflation. Japan has been in deflation for a decade. Both central banks are now engaging in programs similar to the QE programs.
Having said this, I am not trying to simplify the difficulty in understanding the usefulness of QE3. Problems for European and Japanese economies are subtle than I have suggested. I simply wish to allude to their money supply problems.
I will write more on the QE programs later.
Guy Lipman said:
I’m not convinced by any of the arguments they mention against QE – as you say, you need to compare what would have happened if we hadn’t had QE, and that would have been worse (including worse inequality).
The biggest argument against QE, in my opinion, is that of moral hazard – that people will assume they’ll be bailed out and take more risks. But I believe there are better ways to address that than governments not doing what they can to make things better.
LikeLike
supasiti said:
I am not sure that your argument against QE is entirely valid. It was the US Government that bailed out banks in 2008, not the Federal Reserve. My opinion of the Fed is that they are providing cash to meet the demand for “risk-free” asset. In that regard, it did not intend to address the issue of inequality. Their role is to stabilise the financial market by providing liquidity when it is needed.
To imagine what would happen without the Fed intervention, I would suggest reading some accounts of what happened during the Great Depression. I think that should sum up what I think.
LikeLike
Guy Lipman said:
I’m not making an argument against QE. I’m saying I don’t accept the arguments against QE that the article you linked to mentioned (and one of them was that QE was bad as it increased inequality). So I believe that the world is better as a result QE.
LikeLike
supasiti said:
For an article on a related topic, see this Bloomberg piece: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-11-23/why-countries-wage-currency-wars
LikeLike