I wonder if Japan’s experience with QE was different that what we might expect. Japan engaged in QE in isolation. When everyone is doing it, it is a whole different ball game. Perhaps the only way to measure the effects is to look at relative commodity prices (weighted).

I am sceptical about easy money being the cure-all here. But, at a minimum, when everyone is printing money, that money has to go somewhere.

As for the comments, you’ve probably noticed that my site has been erratic over the past week. It looks like that problem is now fixed. Sorry to lose your comment, though. Cheers.

Your open mind on these topics is refreshing.

Personally I don’t see how QE can do much to fight deflation — when Japan tried it in the early 2000s didn’t it actually help accelerate deflation as more debt was paid off? But I do see that QE could help keep yields low. Also the inflation arguments could become a lot more convincing to me if policy changes such that increases in base money are targeted to those most likely to spend it.

My last comment on a previous post never showed up outside the /comment-page version of the URL, I’m not sure why.