Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Quantitative easing, anyone?

The US Federal Reserve prints money in QE2 (no, not the cruise ship, the second round of Quantitative Easing) as much as US$600 billion to buy up long term US treasury bills over the next 8 months. This is supposed to flush the US banking system with cash so that US Banks will lend out more money to US businesses which in turn create more jobs in the US and lower the US unemployment rate which is now hovering near 10%. That's in theory. But what happens in fact is that all this new money gets pumped OUT of the US into emerging markets in developing countries, so-called "hot money" snapping up properties, stocks, commodities, bonds in emerging economies and creating asset bubbles. Then i dread that as fast as this hot money comes in, foreign fund managers will take profit and spirit out their investments INCLUDING yours and mine hard-earned cash leaving markets in emerging economies crumbling in a tailspin.

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