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低利率伤害调查

Dec 14, 2017 Anders Åslund

华盛顿—2008年金融危机后的多年中，决策者因为避免了第二次大萧条而为自己“点赞”。他们用当时做需要的凯恩斯主义财政和货币刺激应对全球衰退。

但九年过去后，官方利率仍在零水平线上徘徊，而增长则一直平庸。自2008年以来，欧盟平均年增长率只有0.9%。

在危机后立即形成的广泛的凯恩斯主义共识已经成为当今流行的经济教条：只要增长保持萎靡，年通货膨胀率保持不到2%的水平，那么加大刺激不但是合适的，更是必须的。

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B Wilds Dec 15, 2017

The policy of rapid credit expansion while an interesting concept often brings with it negative consequences. Currently, it is being put to the test as new problems emerge in China where we saw the amount of GDP growth generated by each infusion of money decrease over the last four years.

Savers are suffering from these low-interest rates. The leading edge of the massive Boomer generation knows that every dollar spent is a dollar it cannot re-earn or replenish. Lower rates in effect have caused many older Americans to hoard their wealth. On the flip-side, many people with little savings have rushed out to buy cars and expensive items they really can't afford and pulled consumption forward. The article below looks at some of the unhealthy side-effects of low-interest rates.

http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2017/03/low-interest-rates-carry-hidden-cost.html
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Steve Hurst Dec 14, 2017

Policy did what it was supposed to - Protect the Establishment which also included Banks - And abstract wealth from Savers, who else was wealth to be abstracted from. Protection ensured assets were secured. If they were unsecured then the pyramid collapsed. The overshoot was inevitable because the downside was too big a risk and the boundary was indeterminate. Its a crock of ... wrapped in a bow but at least there was a crock
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Paul Daley Dec 14, 2017

Aslund doesn't answer the question he asks - could policy-makers have avoided the long term use of low interest rates? Some believe that the paralysis of governments forced that choice. But the paralysis of governments didn't make low interest rates so ineffectual that they had to be continued for eight years. That was a product of the use to which the low interest funds were put. Channeled to asset markets, they served primarily to boost asset prices, in effect driving a wedge between asset prices and underlying income flows.

If central banks are going to substitute for governments effectively, then they are going to have to act like governments in supplementing incomes and sustaining demand for goods and services. That means using the funds created by quantitative easing to fund infrastructure and other projects, or to direct loans to taxpayers through withholding systems. Simply pumping asset prices will only produce the long, slow, fragile and unequal recovery that we have seen this decade.
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