To me the biggest mystery about the 2008 crisis is why so much QE has resulted in so little inflation.
The only convincing arguments I have heard so far is that:
1. at the same time banks were forced to significantly deleverage, so while the fed was pouring money into the systems, banks were effectively pouring money out of the system.
2. inflation happened but it was all concentrated into financial assets, real estate, and salaries for the upper middle class, which expenses (college tuition, luxury flats and houses, restaurants, etc) have seen a double digit inflation (my FT subscription must have doubled in 10 years!). These aren't really measured by CPI indices.
I guess it may also have to do with how the QE was introduced. If it was money printed to pay civil servants it might have had a different effect than introduced in the bond market.
But I don't know if it is reproducible. It feels like we are at the end of the current cycle (it's hard not to be nervous when looking at a 30y chart of the S&P500). QE is pretty much all the way in, rates are low. There isn't going to be much more central banks can do than print even more money. Inflation should show its ugly head sooner or later.
The only convincing arguments I have heard so far is that:
1. at the same time banks were forced to significantly deleverage, so while the fed was pouring money into the systems, banks were effectively pouring money out of the system.
2. inflation happened but it was all concentrated into financial assets, real estate, and salaries for the upper middle class, which expenses (college tuition, luxury flats and houses, restaurants, etc) have seen a double digit inflation (my FT subscription must have doubled in 10 years!). These aren't really measured by CPI indices.
I guess it may also have to do with how the QE was introduced. If it was money printed to pay civil servants it might have had a different effect than introduced in the bond market.
But I don't know if it is reproducible. It feels like we are at the end of the current cycle (it's hard not to be nervous when looking at a 30y chart of the S&P500). QE is pretty much all the way in, rates are low. There isn't going to be much more central banks can do than print even more money. Inflation should show its ugly head sooner or later.