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Comment by carnitine | Hacker News Reader

Probably because inflation has never been particularly bad post-QE. We had inflation north of 10% in the 70s, it’s averaged a couple of percent in the last two decades.

Also, despite what the Fed probably wants you to think, QE is not money printing, it is a duration swap between different forms of existing money.

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Can you elaborate on what you mean by a “duration swap” and “different forms of money”?

When the Fed does quantitative easing, they swap bank reserves for bonds held by banks. These bonds are economically equivalent to money which cannot be spent until a certain date, so the Fed is effectively just bringing this date forward.

It sounds like you subscribe to the increasingly popular framing of money creation, which is that the fed does not create money, the treasury does.

Much of my knowledge on the matter comes from fedguy.com.

You see, you can't pay rent or buy groceries with bank reserves but they sure do make it easier for banks to lend money. Someone has to borrow money before it can be spent.

I would also like to mention that the fiscal stimulus by the Biden administration had the intended/usual effect. You know, the thing that QE couldn't create: inflation. If there is an effective tool then the defective tool that distorts the economy can be thrown away.

...and where do those bank reserves originate from?

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