The temporary desperation measure of "quantitative easing" plods onward, and as Bloomberg News reports, it's starting to raise a few eyebrows at the Federal Reserve:
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke???s latest round of bond buying will reach $1.14 trillion before he ends the program in the first quarter of 2014, according to median estimates in a Bloomberg survey of economists.
Bernanke will push on with purchases of $40 billion a month of mortgage bonds and $45 billion a month of Treasuries, according to the survey of 44 economists, even as some Fed officials warn his unprecedented balance-sheet expansion will impair efforts to tighten policy when necessary.
???To get to the point where Bernanke would be comfortable letting up, you have to have a good solid string of economic reports that you???re just not going to get??? this year, said Eric Green, global head of rates and FX research at TD Securities Inc. in New York and a former New York Fed economist.
What's that? We're not in the middle of a roaring recovery? Didn't Eric Green watch all those presidential debates where President Obama praised the resurgent economy nourished by his wise economic policies? Hasn't he watched as the President and his people staggered from beneath the concussive blow of each new "unexpected" job report and declared his economy was chugging down the "right track?"
And yet, these Fed officials supposedly "have a brighter outlook for the economy than many private economists!" They're saying that even 2 percent growth might be too much to hope for. And 57 percent of them say "QE Forever" probably won't even create any jobs in 2013. Hanging out with those guys must be really depressing.
