Thursday, September 26, 2013

Bernanke consensus - keep money flowing

The monetary church at which we worship as described by Amity Schlaes of Forbes is loose money with no change in sight. The general consensus or "Bernanke consensus" is there will never be a shortage of liquidity like in the Great Depression, there is a need for inflation because deflation is the real enemy, and the dual maintain requires Keynesian monetary policies especially at zero interest rates. 

There is talk of tapering but there is little discussion of reversing the huge balance sheet of the Fed. Cutting purchases by the Fed is not the same thing as cutting the stock of securities. Now, the balance sheet will decline with bonds maturing but that is a very long process. There is only one orthodoxy in monetary economics.

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