Quantitative Easing: Miracle Cure or Dangerous Addiction?
Analysis
BBC
4.6 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 21 October 2013
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Quantitative Easing was the drug prescribed by economists to keep Western economies functioning in a moment of crisis. Sunday Telegraph economic commentator Liam Halligan argues that the policy of money creation has now become a dangerous addiction.
Interviewees include:
Dr Adam Posen, President of the Petersen Institute for International Economics in Washington DC Stephen King, Chief Economist of HSBC Jim Rickards, author of Currency Wars Professor Richard Werner, Chair in International Banking at Southampton University Dan Conaghan, author of The Bank: Inside the Bank of England Dr Philippa Malmgren, former financial markets advisor to the US President
Producer: Phil Kemp.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
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| 0:35.4 | Sounds. |
| 0:36.4 | Thank you for downloading BBC Radio 4's analysis. |
| 0:40.0 | I'm Liam Halligan, and on this week's program I'll be asking if the policy of quantitative easing |
| 0:45.4 | could create a bigger financial crisis than the one it was supposed to avert. |
| 0:50.6 | Quantitative easing, it's quite a mouthful, not a name that invites attention and maybe that's the point. |
| 0:57.0 | This is a policy that's hugely important, yet it's received very little media scrutiny. |
| 1:03.0 | But then again, even the pros struggle to say it. |
| 1:07.0 | This asset purchase facility gives the Bank of England the power to use |
| 1:11.0 | asset purchases for monetary policy purposes. |
| 1:15.0 | That amounts to a program of quantitative easing. |
| 1:18.5 | It is the modern equivalent of printing money. |
| 1:21.3 | And while no one rules it out out it is the last resort for |
| 1:24.3 | governments who have run out of other options. If we spend more than we earn we have to |
| 1:29.5 | get the money from somewhere right now the government is simply printing it. |
| 1:35.0 | Sometime soon that will have to stop. |
| 1:38.0 | That was George Osborne and David Cameron in 2009 |
... |
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