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Tuesday 29 September 2020

Quantitative easing or just printing money?

So we have just been through a period of quantitative easing but what does it all mean? Quantitative easing is considered an unconventional monetary policy, or at least new, to lower interest rates and increase money supply.


So the central bank creates electronic money to purchase government bonds from the secondary market, as this creates buying demand the price of the bond should rise in accordance with the principles of supply and demand. Naturally, this distorts the natural equilibrium of the free market creating an oversupply of capital. 

So far we haven't seen the effects of inflation and we need to ask why? Have the central banks managed the process to such a fine degree that they avoided the old issue of inflation? The core issue during the global financial crisis was liquidity and business lending, as the banks held onto cash with business activity curtailed. 

QE provided the required liquidity and flooded the bond market with cash. The growth of money didn't appear to affect the  markets, well not yet anyway and may just push the problem out. This is what we are finding out now, I was told they will be no world growth for the foreseeable future, just the growth of money and that is what we are seeing.  

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