What is Quantitative Easing anyway? Is it any good?

presenter: Mike Black

The Bank of England has spent an enormous amount of money – £375 billion – on Quantitative Easing (QE), and is going to add £70 billion more.

Positive Money is campaigning against this, and even the Prime Minister has complained about its “bad side effects” and said “A change has got to come”.

How is QE supposed to work, what’s wrong with it, and could it be replaced with something else?

Mike gave a well informed and clearly structured talk, covering

• basics of the UK monetary system (including reserves) - what was it that needed 'easing'?
• what was QE supposed to achieve? (5 different objectives)
• why has QE been criticised? (rebuttals against all 5 objectives)
• what could be done instead?
1. 'strategic QE' (NEF)
2. 'people's QE' (Murphy, Corbyn)
3. helicopter drops (Friedman, Bernanke)
4. 'Sovereign Money creation' (Positive Money)

The talk was followed by questions and answers, and discussion

Mike showed two videos during his presentation

• Create money for people, not for financial markets (Fran Boait,, Executive Director of Positive Money, talking about the current campaign and petition)
• how to waste £375 billion

You can download Mike's Powerpoint slides here > 161031 Mike - What is Quantitative Easing anyway.pptx