"If you havenÂ’t experienced the 'recovery' from the Great Recession the corporate media keeps insisting is here, thatÂ’s because 'quantitative easing' is a new way to say 'trickle-down.'
"In this latest version, the Federal Reserve has pumped trillions of dollars into financial markets to create a stock market bubble.
"Other than a small secondary effect of re-animating real estate prices, a growing bubble in stock prices has constituted the extent of the economic impact.
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Good for the one percent, not so good for the rest of us.
"'Quantitative easing' is the technical name for a Federal Reserve program in which it buys U.S. government debt and mortgage-backed securities in massive amounts.
"In conjunction with keeping interest rates near zero, quantitative easing is supposedly intended to stimulate the economy by encouraging investment.
"A reduction in long-term interests rates would encourage working people to buy or refinance homes; for businesses to invest because they could borrow cheaply; and push down the value of the dollar, thereby boosting exports by making U.S.-made products more competitive.
"In real life, however, the effect has been an upward distribution of money and an increase in speculation.
"This new form of trickle-down has not worked any differently than did the earlier version during the Reagan administration.
"Now that the Federal Reserve will gradually reduce the amount of bonds it purchases (announced last month) and perhaps end the program by the end of 2014, Wall Street and corporate executives worry that their latest party might be over."
The Federal Reserve Inflates Another Bubble, But Not for You » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names