There is a fair description of quantitative easing as it has been practiced in the UK and as it is likely to be practiced in Europe. It is socialism for the rich in action.
The government buys back vast quantities of its own debts from the financial services organisations that currently own it and they in turn use their new found cash to trade and speculate in ways that firstly makes a lot of money for bankers and their friends and secondly that increases the wealth of the already well off.
If you need evidence this is a headline just published by the FT:
European equities are inching to seven-year highs as traders bet on more stimulus this week from theEuropean Central Bank.
QE as practiced by central bankers is a way of making sure bankers have never had it so good, all at cost to the state and the rest of us.
Which is why I continue to argue for the alternative that is green quantitative easing.
And for wealth taxation.
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“The figures, to be published in a forthcoming report, are astonishing. Farnsworth takes the financial year 2011-12 and tots up the subsidies and grants paid directly to businesses. They amount to over £14bn — that is, almost three times the £5bn paid out that year in income-based jobseeker’s allowance. Add to that the corporate tax benefits, the value of the cheap credit made available to banks and other business, the insurance schemes run by the government to protect exporters, the marketing for British business laid on by Vince Cable’s ministry, the public procurement from the private sector … Farnsworth calculates that direct corporate welfare costs British taxpayers just shy of £85bn a year”
Never forgetting the over-one-trillion pounds of bail-out-bonds.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/06/benefits-corporate-welfare-research-public-money-businesses
http://www.renewal.org.uk/articles/the-british-corporate-welfare-state/
John, thanks for posting those links; I particularly liked this from the article on the corporate welfare state:
“….that some of the companies that make the biggest demands on public services, and extract the largest benefits, are often the very same corporations that most strenuously oppose government ‘intervention and interference’ within markets and most assiduously avoid paying their taxes.”
Surprise, surprise, eh? So who are the real “parasites and scroungers” in our society then? The stench of hypocrisy from the political right on the whole subject of welfare is utterly disgusting. Perhaps some of those who attack Richard on this blog would care to comment on this subject?