Time on Quantitative Easing

Time has an interesting picture essay on the dangers of printing money. My concern for the Administration's proposals on stimulating the economy is that they are probably past reasonable efforts to help in solving the slowdown (to the extent that the government can help here - and there is considerable evidence that their efforts will not help).

I carried in my wallet for a long time a 100,000 peso note from Mexico which was issued prior to the mid-1990s devaluation. When I got it in Oaxaca, the note was just about to be pulled and was worth the equivalent of 100 pesos - the Mexican government had been forced to drop three zeros from their currency. There were lots of disruptions in the economy at the time including a group called the naked bandits. This was a group in Mexico City that would enter into banks completely naked and rob it. They would shout the government has taken everything else we have.

Rahm Emmauel says it is a bad thing to waste a crisis. That may be true but it is probably a worse thing to misuse one.