Will bond investors keep faith with U.S. government debt amid signs of growing global inflation?
In the end, as with all banks, even central banks, it boils down to trust.
Asked on Wednesday at an appearance before the U.S. House of Representatives Budget Committee if the Fed’s $600 billion programme of quantitative easing amounted to monetization — that Peter to Paul transfer when a government prints money to pay for a shortfall — Ben Bernanke said an interesting thing:
“Monetization involves a permanent increase in money supply though money creation. (QE) is a temporary measure that will be reversed. Money will be normalized and there will be no permanent increase in outstanding balance sheet or inflation.”
So, because he intends to undo it later, he’s not doing it now.
This is both demonstrably false and deeply, at least for now, true.
False because, of course, money is being created to fund the purchase of debt issued by the Treasury. True because Bernanke can avoid the disaster often associated with monetization so long as he retains the faith of the world’s investors that he not only intends to unwind QE but will be able to do so at the right time in the future.
Monetization is an inflammatory term because so often in the past the practice of funding a revenue shortfall by buying debt with newly printed money has worked out poorly, resulting in an inflationary spiral that beggars creditors and kills the real economy.
