I had never heard of the term "quantitative easing" until about a month ago. I was walking in my neighborhood in Northwest Arkansas thinking about all the houses on the two streets around us that have been foreclosed, are for rent, or are for sale. Usually the total is around sixteen. On this day, however, NPR was speaking of quantitative easing as a way of quietly stimulating the economy. Instead of the messy business of a new stimulus plan that must be approved by congress, why not just flood the economy with $600 billion dollars of new printed money? I thought it was a fabulous idea and longed to be put on the Christmas list for just such a gift to our family.
Many of us could greatly benefit from receiving a free gift of printed money just in time for the holiday. After all we could go to the mall and shop freely for our families without pulling out the credit card even once. We could fill our pockets with money and pay in cash. Heck, we could even afford to be generous to others in need and share some of the cash with them.
Unfortunately, the new printed money will only serve to weaken our already weakened dollar and to put us as a country in further risk that the Chinese will simply call in our debt. It might help our exports, but then we become the country we have been criticizing: namely China who has been manipulating its currency in order to increase its exports also.
The future months will reveal the impact of quantitative easing upon the U. S. economy. In the meantime, it would be very nice for Santa to fill our stockings with cash to at least pay the After-Christmas bills.
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