As I understand it, quantitative easing is supposed to be viewed as an emergency measure that states use for temporary relief when the markets go into the negative to avoid everything spiraling into a recession. The US is just using QE all the time as a base stimulus, which means they can't use it in an emergency.
"Hey Bank-chan, I have this idea for a restaurant that sells balloon animals. I think I'm going to charge $12 for a burger+balloon combo. Can I have 30,000,000 of the new money to do it?"
"Sure, Slimeball-kun. Here you go!"
Nobody has enough money to buy stupid borger
"Hey Bank-chan, I'm declaring bankrupcy. you're only getting $2,000,000 back on the investment"
"But you and 99999 other people were supposed to make me profit!"
Local news: "Your local bank is freaking out"
"Oh holy shit, get my money out of that bank!" x9,999,999
"Omg I don't have enough money if 9999999 people withdraw their savings"
bank run
bank collapses
nobody can make any businesses
feds try to step in... again
Only this time nobody wants to buy the dogshit bonds because BRICS is trying to divest. B&RI is using USD as toilet paper
"Idk, maybe raise taxes 88% on the lowest 25% of Americans?" - Elon Mu$$k
lowest 25%-sama can't afford food
also that real estate bubble that was giga overdue happens because of the week-decade thing
cool zone begins
Meanwhile China enjoys a functioning, self-sufficient economy because they are capable of doing anything
The only way out (other than compete collapse) is going back to 1940s taxes where the rich were paying 90% after a certain threshold and, uhh, gestures broadly at the state of US politics
Barely. Even if the US met its spending through gigataxes, the taxes would go towards genociding teenagers, chauvinistic enforcement of the petrodollar, corporate buybacks, R&D on planned obsolescence, political ads, and recruiting troops.
I can think of a third, much more sinister way our of a capitalist pinch
As I understand it, quantitative easing is supposed to be viewed as an emergency measure that states use for temporary relief when the markets go into the negative to avoid everything spiraling into a recession. The US is just using QE all the time as a base stimulus, which means they can’t use it in an emergency.
Well, they raised interest rates throughout 2022 until basically the end of 2023, where it topped out at 5.33. It's dipped about a percentage point now, to 4.48 [1]. So there is some room to keep playing the QE game, in theory. Granted, QE and the FFER aren't a causal relation here; just a correlation. Lots of folks thought that near-zero or zero interest rate policy would kill the dollar back in the 2007-2008 global financial crisis, but so far, the dollar is still around. Maybe additional QE would kill the dollar. Maybe it won't make a difference. I honestly don't know enough to have an educated guess.
As I understand it, quantitative easing is supposed to be viewed as an emergency measure that states use for temporary relief when the markets go into the negative to avoid everything spiraling into a recession. The US is just using QE all the time as a base stimulus, which means they can't use it in an emergency.
Yup. QE and also loaning tons of money to banks to prevent runs and failures. Stuff that doesn't get talked about much in MSM.
Imagine a burger:
"Hey Bank-chan, I have this idea for a restaurant that sells balloon animals. I think I'm going to charge $12 for a burger+balloon combo. Can I have 30,000,000 of the new money to do it?"
"Sure, Slimeball-kun. Here you go!"
Nobody has enough money to buy stupid borger
"Hey Bank-chan, I'm declaring bankrupcy. you're only getting $2,000,000 back on the investment"
"But you and 99999 other people were supposed to make me profit!"
Local news: "Your local bank is freaking out"
"Oh holy shit, get my money out of that bank!" x9,999,999
"Omg I don't have enough money if 9999999 people withdraw their savings"
bank run
bank collapses
nobody can make any businesses
feds try to step in... again
Only this time nobody wants to buy the dogshit bonds because BRICS is trying to divest. B&RI is using USD as toilet paper
"Idk, maybe raise taxes 88% on the lowest 25% of Americans?" - Elon Mu$$k
lowest 25%-sama can't afford food
also that real estate bubble that was giga overdue happens because of the week-decade thing
cool zone begins
Meanwhile China enjoys a functioning, self-sufficient economy because they are capable of doing anything
I imagine it's something like that.
The only way out (other than compete collapse) is going back to 1940s taxes where the rich were paying 90% after a certain threshold and, uhh, gestures broadly at the state of US politics
Barely. Even if the US met its spending through gigataxes, the taxes would go towards genociding teenagers, chauvinistic enforcement of the petrodollar, corporate buybacks, R&D on planned obsolescence, political ads, and recruiting troops.
I can think of a third, much more sinister way our of a capitalist pinch
a third way, eh? :)
Fascism!
That would have to come after complete collapse. There's no left movement in the US that could overthrow the government.
Yep, we've essentially been in emergency mode for years now
Well, they raised interest rates throughout 2022 until basically the end of 2023, where it topped out at 5.33. It's dipped about a percentage point now, to 4.48 [1]. So there is some room to keep playing the QE game, in theory. Granted, QE and the FFER aren't a causal relation here; just a correlation. Lots of folks thought that near-zero or zero interest rate policy would kill the dollar back in the 2007-2008 global financial crisis, but so far, the dollar is still around. Maybe additional QE would kill the dollar. Maybe it won't make a difference. I honestly don't know enough to have an educated guess.
[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FEDFUNDS