[craigtoo]

Originally Posted by wind_magic

Quantitative easing is when they drop the whole charade and simply print money and spend it into the economy. Instead of borrowing it by selling Treasuries, or TARP'ing it into the economy, or tax cuts, or what have you, the federal government simply says - hey, I wish we had half a trillion $us to spend, and the Treasury says, oh, well, we've got these fancy printing presses, we'll print you some right up. They simply create money out of thin air and use it to buy their own Treasury bonds so that they can spend as much money as they want. No promise to repay it in the future, no nothing, just print as much as you want when you want it.

Often Referred to as:

"Jimmy Cartering"