Posted by Charleston Voice, 06.13.12
Reads to me like Americans are being postured for their own private central bank cartel, the US Federal Reserve, to bailout Europe.
It really doesn't matter what wealth and liberties will be surrendered, or what voters think. The banking cartel and its government enforcement arm will do whatever it takes (from you) to safeguard their own wealth and safety.
Analysis: Endless QE? $6 trillion and counting
As rich economies sink deeper into a slough of debt after yet another wave of euro financial and banking stress and U.S. hiring hesitancy, everyone is looking back to the U.S. Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, Bank of England and Bank of Japan to stabilize the situation once more.
What's for sure is that quantitative easing, whereby the "Big Four" central banks have for four years effectively created new money by expanding their balance sheets and buying mostly government bonds from their banks, is back on the agenda for all their upcoming policy meetings.
Government credit cards are all but maxed out and commercial banks' persistent instability, existential fears and reluctance to lend means the explosion of newly minted cash has yet to spark the broad money supply growth needed to generate more goods and services.
In other words, electronic money creation to date - whether directly through bond buying in the United States or Britain or in a more oblique form of cheap long-term lending by the ECB - is not even replacing what commercial banks are removing by shoring up their own balance sheets and winding down loan books.
Global investors appear convinced more QE is in the pipe.
"It is almost as if investors are saying QE will happen no matter what," said Bank of America Merrill Lynch's Gary Baker.
BoA Merrill's latest monthly survey of 260 fund managers showed nearly three in four expect the ECB to proceed with another liquidity operation by October. Almost half expected the Fed to return to the pumps over the same period.
The BoJ has already upped asset purchases yet again this year and Bank of England policy dove Adam Posen said on Monday the BoE should not only buy more government bonds but target small business loans too.
SO FAR, SO SO
But aside from investor hopes of a market-based call and response, is there any evidence that QE actually helps the underlying problem and what are the risks from all this?
The "counterfactual", to use an economics wonk's term, is the most powerful argument in QE's favor - what would have happened if they didn't print at all and broad money supply collapsed?
But after four years in which, according to HSBC, the balance sheets of the Big Four have collectively more than tripled to $9 trillion and still not generated self-sustaining recoveries, the question is how long this can keep going on without creating bigger problems for the future.
For a start, there is no quick solution to the problem of mountainous indebtedness.
Recapitalizing banks; stabilizing housing and mortgage markets responsible for deteriorating loan quality; further deep integration of euro fiscal links to support the shared currency; and capping government debt piles in the United States, Japan and Britain will - even for optimists - take many years.
On top of that the rich economies face gale force headwinds over the next decade from ageing and retiring populations... Finish reading @Source Reuters
