Quantitative Easing and other performance enhancing drugs

There was a big on-air confessional a while back. Something about bicycles.  Here’s another interview that got overshadowed by that big one. Or perhaps it is an educational cartoon. I’m not sure.

Bernanke to Oprah:  ‘I’ve Been Doping for Years’.

This cartoon gives a superb explanation in 12 minutes of a major factor about how we got into our current economic mess.

The format is an imaginary interview with the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, Ben Bernanke, as he confesses to long-term doping of the economy.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=orh64vypKwU]

Link if needed:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=orh64vypKwU

A few of my favorite lines:

“I have been mainlining monetary heroin for years.”

The interview starts with yes or no questions. The opener:

Did you ever utilize risky monetary stimulants to artificially boost your central banking performance?

Yes.

At about the 4:30 point, the cartoon has a good explanation of the role played by these economic ‘doping’ tools in facilitating the housing bubble and resulting recession.

The cartoon ends with a depressing picture of what will likely happen when we finally unwind the Fed’s untenable position of tripling the monetary supply.

If you want an only slightly tongue-in-cheek explanation of QE 1, 2, & 3 and our current mess, check out the video.

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