The Bank of England is engaged in quantitative easing again and the Fed says it could do too if the rate easing it is engaged in now isn’t stimulative enough. The ECB is also engaged in its own version of QE too. And you have Switzerland, Japan and China intervening massively in currency markets to keep their currencies from appreciating. Welcome to the currency wars.
Deficit fatigue has set in as large scale deficit spending has become politically unacceptable. Austerity is now in. This has caused a recession throughout Europe and weakened the US. To counteract this fiscal retrenchment, monetary authorities are ‘printing’ as much money as they can reasonably get away with.
QE is the policy choice du jour and Omid Malekan has a colorful take on what it means. Take a look.