Because he has no idea what he's talking about. HN people are absolutely clueless on economics but insist on talking out of their ass at every opportunity.
In Zimbabwe the government printed money and handed it out to people. This money directly makes its way into the economy.
In QE the Fed buys assets such as mortgage securities from banks. The banks chose not to lend more aggressively and decided to hold on to the cash. As a result there was no hyper inflation.
So how does QE affect stock / house prices ?
When the FED comes into the market willing to lend to anyone and everyone interest rates fall. As a result returns on bonds and bank deposits also fall. Forcing people into stocks. The effect of QE on asset prices is therefore indirect.
So the QE money itself is hoarded in a deflationary environment while savers get pushed into speculating on assets.
As the economy slowly recovers over 5-10 years the QE money is slowly sucked back out and assets slowly deflate to a fairer value. In theory this can work without too many hiccups.
The problem here lies in the inequality that this generates. Large banks, companies stay afloat thanks to buy backs. Asset owners get richer. Wages stagnate and people lose their jobs albeit less than if QE didn’t exist.
This topic is much more complex than I had initially thought. Nobody should come to conclusions such as “A crash is inevitable” or “Hyperinflation”.
However my worry is that the economy seems to have become permanently dependent on low interest rates. Sure it won’t be zero but something like 1 % looks like a distant dream.
It seems to suggest that we have run out of ways to increase real productivity. A good example is the shale industry which will basically go bust if interest rates are like 3 %.
We seem to be in a new regime of lower economic growth, high asset prices and inequality. The real danger here is the political sustainability of this. Zero interest rates are an indirect pay cut via rents and mortgages. At some point asset owners will have to take a haircut.
But at this point, we're talking technology and society instead of economics. Will innovation continue, and are those innovations a big enough deal that they will continue to make our world more productive, wealthier, more successful? I lean towards yes, but it is not at all obvious. It is certainly possible that productivity growth stagnates, most countries catch up to a generally-developed level of output, and asset prices stagnate as temporary demographic bumps are smoothed out.
Growth is fundamentally tied to the availability of cheap energy. If you look at oil prices in gold you’ll see how it’s almost twice as expensive today.
We are also facing constraints on energy extraction due to climate change.
Every time oil prices spike shale oil comes online but the economy chokes on the price oil crashes and the shale producers go further into debt.
This may also be why a lot of growth is in the digital sphere which is far less energy constrained. Maybe future growth will be Virtual reality GDP :P
The only way I can be wrong is if someone invents a cheap fusion reactor or a cheap magical battery that stores endless amounts of solar energy. This is highly unlikely to happen.
Disclaimer: Very speculative thesis but I believe in it.
On the inequality side, it is a bit unfortunate to be in the workforce at this time competing with the massive influx of other savers, bidding up productive assets to save for retirement, enriching the people who were "lucky" enough to be in the generation before that population/affluence boom. But there's not really anything that can be done about it, not without tightening financial conditions enough that it has severe negative effects for the labor market.