Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Bring on the helicopters!

Quantitative easing.

The Bank of England committee have voted unanimously for it.

Sounds like some dry technical term.

So let's translate it using the helpful services of economist Milton Friedman, who explained quantitative easing as randomly dropping money out of helicopters to try to kick start the economy.

"Helicopter money" in other words. And indeed, US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, after showing some enthusiasm for the idea, is known as "Helicopter Ben" (see cartoon).

My own view is that all banks should be nationalised and bring on the helicopters. "It's better to be roughly right than precisely wrong" (John Maynard Keynes)

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