Clearing my spindle: QE-infinity edition

Over the weekend Paul Mirengoff spotlighted the views of two well-informed commentators on the Fed’s long-running experiment in epic monetary easing, now in its fourth iteration. Paul is admirably open-minded, while admittedly suspicious, of the program.

I frankly hate it. It robs savers of the value of their savings. It viciously complicates retirement planning and life for those in retirement. If a Republican were president, we’d be hearing about it on page-one every day.

The program is guaranteed to produce inflation that will further destroy savings. And it plays its own role in our continuing pitiful economic performance. It will end badly, but is is also playing poorly in the meantime. Herewith a few more items that are worthy your consideration on the subject:

Wall Street Journal, Editorial, “The Fed’s contradiction.”

Irwin Stelzer, Weekly Standard, “Printing our way out of debt.”

Chris Martenson, ZeroHedge, “QE4: What you need to know about the Fed’s latest move.”

Matthew Kaminski, Wall Street Journal, “Leszek Balcerowicz: The anti-Bernanke.”

Robert Samuelson, RealClearPolitics, “The Fed rolls the dice.”

As with the columns to which Paul directed your attention, I believe one can learn something from these discussions of the subject and that they are helpful in forming one’s own conclusions. The Journal editorial points out, for example: “One reason the Obama Administration can keep running trillion-dollar deficits is because it can borrow the money at bargain rates. Stanford economist and Journal contributor John Taylor says the Fed has bought more than 70% of new Treasury debt issuance this year.” Absolutely mind-boggling.

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