Stimulating economic growth (QE2) didn’t work. Now what?

In December, I asserted that we’re inevitably heading into a prolonged period of high inflation. I also asserted that stimulus spending won’t reignite economic growth because we’ve simply passed the point where marginal productivity of debt has turned negative. Namely, each Dollar of new debt generates negative economic growth.

Five months and nearly $600 billion later, we’re nearing the end of the Federal Reserve’s second round of quantitative easing, and the results – even with various government agencies sloppy book cooking – are dismal:

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About Bernanke’s 100% confidence…

On 5th December 2010, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke gave an interview to 60 minutes. The whole thing seemed like a choreographed show, but this exchange with 60 minutes’ interviewer Scott Pelley took me aback:

Scott Pelley: “You have what degree of confidence in your ability to control this?”
Bernanke: “One hundred percent.”

Inflation might decimate your wealth

In February this year, we wrote that the sovereign debt crisis, pervasive in the developed world, was “certain to lead at some point to a prolonged period of inflation.” We are now in the early stages of that period and an acceleration of inflation is now virtually certain. Unless investors move aggressively to protect their wealth, they are likely to lose 50% or more of their wealth’s purchasing power in the coming years.