cj,
Of course not. There is a cost associated with it. In this case, probably inflation.
I think inflation is risk when creation of money outpaces the growth of the economy somewhat. The rate of creation of money and upcoming surge in borrowing, guarantees of debt put us in an uncharted territory.
There is a guy on AMD thread (justview, IIRC) that seems like a bit of a fruitcake, but, IMO, it would be unwise to ignore the risk he is talking about, which is risk of collapse in confidence in world currencies.
What is it that makes dollar a dollar? It is confidence in everyone using the currency that the Federal reserve will manage it prudently. Fed of the past got in trouble when it tried to do too many things to too many people. The same thing is happening today, with probably an order of magnitude higher intensity. And Congress is out of control by the same order of magnitude.
Granted, it all depends on what actually happens, and we don't know what will. But we are probably looking at having to rework the whole global economy. Now, we can stand by and watch all the balls hit the ground and then try to pick up the pieces. Or we can try to do something.
At one of the seminars I attended, the presenter said one thing you can be sure of: You will always fail if you try to solve the "world hunger" - meaning huge, all-encompassing task that is impossible to even measure.
"having to rework the whole global economy" would be the text book example of what he had in mind of what not to do.
Joe |