If a debt crisis results from government profligacy and mismanagement, rather than from a market failure, it is true that the central bank should not intervene.
The Fed cannot save us from ourselves.
Printing money is the last resort of desperate governments when all other policies have failed.
The 'boom-bust' cycle is generated by monetary intervention in the market, specifically bank credit expansion to business.
Long before folks fretted the demise of 'quantitative easing,' I fretted its existence. It proved the reverse of its image, an antistimulus, and we've done okay not because of it, but despite it.
We [Federal Government] have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work.
Opponents of central-bank intervention are right about one thing: monetary financing carries serious risks. In order to ensure that it is as safe and effective as possible, it must be used primarily in the event of self-fulfilling debt crises.
I would say [Fed policy] has been in some sense Reverse Robin Hood.
Monetary policy should never have been expected to shift economies to a sustainably higher growth trajectory by itself.
Larger deficits are necessary and proper means to mitigate unemployment as the far greater evil in terms of human welfare.
I don't think that the ECB should compensate for the lack of reforms in some countries... But it is clear that monetary policy can help countries and continents to rebound faster.
Japan is doing a big number on the yen, devaluing it.
