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The Monetary Bank Policies Through A Program Called Quantitative Easing

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Given the severity of the crisis of 2007, and the ineffectiveness of the measures the Fed had at its disposal, it was forced to engage in nontraditional monetary bank policies through a program called quantitative easing. Instead of focusing solely on cutting interest rates and by this reducing the price of money, the Fed decided to increase the quantity of money; going to the financial markets to buy assets, and creating money while doing so. The main focus was acquiring Treasury bonds, government debt, and assets backed by home loans. The reason to buy the first two is pretty clear, but assets backed by home loans might not be. Those assets where considered to be “rotten”: they lost most of their value after the crisis, and no one risked …show more content…

As supply falls, the prices of those securities rise and their yields decline. The effects extend to other longer-term securities. Mortgage rates and corporate bond yields fall as investors who sold securities to the Fed invest that money elsewhere. Hence, QE drives down a broad range of longer-term borrowing rates. And lower rates get households and businesses to spend more than they otherwise would, boost economic activity." The real question is what the consequences of the program are. Supporters point out that it lowered interest rates for firms and households, strengthened the stock market, stimulated job creation, and ultimately saved the American economy from a deeper recession. Critics say this temporary injection of never seen amounts of money into the economy will eventually lead to a new financial crisis, massive inflation, and has punished savers due to close to 0% interest rates. The reality is the massive increase in the monetary base has it’s clear and well known impacts, the ambiguity lies on quantifying if the positives outweigh the negative outcomes, or vice versa.

The monetary base explosion has one very popular criticism; inflation will eventually soar to never seen levels. As more money is printed and circulates the economy, prices rise.

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