Does the U.S. Economy Really Need QE2?
The world economies have been rocked and devastated by the horrific financial crisis that took place toward the end of 2007. The United Kingdom, the European Union, Japan and China, along will countless other countries have been negatively affected by the major crisis. One economy that has been one of the hardest hit was the United States. The United States suffered from a major housing crisis, a historic banking crisis and a huge unemployment crisis. Countless homeowners started defaulting on their mortgages, banking institutions were going bankrupt and the national unemployment rate was reaching record highs. The country was in turmoil.
Due to the chaos that was taking place, the U.S. government bailed out the major banking institutions, investment firms and automotive companies to the tune of 700 billion dollars; money that was taken directly from U.S. taxpayers. That along with the Federal Reserve purchasing financial assets to help jump start the economy, one and a half trillion dollars were poured into the U.S. economy.
This all stated in 2008. After the money was spent, the U.S. economy did seem to start getting better; and so did the global economy. Now fast forward to 2010. The news starts getting bad all over again. The United States economy is starting to stall, the unemployment rate is stuck at a very high level and inflation is dangerously low.
As a result, the FED has announced that they are going to start pumping additional money in to the United States’ economy. This second action, known as quantitative easing 2 or QE2 has been getting a lot of coverage and publicity. Many think it’s not needed while some do. Here are the reasons why some do believe it’s needed.
As I mentioned above, the United States’ economy has started to falter and stall. The idea is that money needs to more accessible to help stimulate the economy and get things on a path to economic growth once again. The unemployment rate is way too high and inflation is way too low. Just by looking at those facts, quantitative easing 2 makes a lot of sense.
Here are the reasons why some don’t believe quantitative easing 2 is needed. One, it destroys the United States dollar. The United States dollars loses its value big time whenever the FED just starts making money out of thin air. Every person who uses the US dollar automatically becomes poorer. Two, it didn’t work the first time, so many believe it won’t work this time.
No matter what my or your opinion is, the FED already announced that they are going to go through with QE2. Will it work? Only time will tell.
One economist named Stephan believes that the FED is only keeping half of its mandate. The FED’s mandate is to promote maximum employment and ensure price stability. The United States’ economy has a high unemployment rate and quantitative easing 2should help lower it. Price stability, however, is not going to benefit.