Is this why the Greens backed quantitative easing?

Jeremy Warner at The Telegraph reports:

Bit late on this, but a report this week by the management consultancy McKinsey has attempted to quantify the distributional consequences of central bank asset purchases (so-called ) which I referred to in my column this morning. Pretty terrifying reading it makes too, hammering home the point that QE has been extremely beneficial to indebted governments and other borrowers, but on the whole very damaging to households, particularly elderly ones reliant on fixed income forms of saving.

And further:

Most certainly the profligate have been bailed out at the expense of the thrifty, but it is not even clear that there is a net economic benefit from propping up the overborrowed. In the end, it may have been at best a zero sum game. More spending sustained among the overstretched has very possibly been cancelled out by less spending by those with the foresight to save.

QE has resulted in a massive transfer of from households the governments.

Enables the Government to spend more by printing money, but households still end up paying for it.

Comments (34)

Login to comment or vote

Add a Comment