Friday 7 October 2011

QE is a disaster

Douglas Carswell
"Yesterday the Bank of England announced plans to "inject £75 billion into the economy".

Today the sort of "experts" who tanked the banks and landed us in this mess speak of the need for a further £500 billion. Indeed, many of the bankers cheering on this next round of QE stand to gain directly from it.This is a disaster. People will look back at this approach one day and wonder how on earth it was ever seen as a good idea.Printing more money will not create wealth.It will erode savings, punish those who do the right thing and seriously harm the productive sectors of the economy. It will disincentive savings - and not allow the increase in savings ratios needed to build up real credit.The bill for printing this extra £75 billion will be paid by my constituents through higher shopping bills, the diminished purchasing power of their pensions, and reduced savings. So much of this strategy - printing money, low interest rates, rationing credit - is a continuation of the kind of Treasury policy we had under Alistair Darling. We need a different approach.

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