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Comment by Guthur | Hacker News Reader

The world economy died in 2008, it's just been on QE life support ever since.

This life support has spawned zombie companies everywhere that produce nothing that anyone really wants or needs and amount to nothing more than adult day care centres.

Chickens are coming home to roost on this one.

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I bought into that for a while (having followed that variety of economic opinion). The idea was that the whole system was hanging by a thread. A moderate shock would make it all fall over. Well, we got a hell of a shock in 2020, and we're doing economically kinda bad, as one would expect regardless after such a shock, but not catastrophically. I don't know what the right model is, but I no longer think that this is the one.

Isn't that just because of more non-conventional intervention though?

Governments used QE to soften the shock from covid lockdowns and basically subsidise the economy. We are now seeing the consequences of that decision.

I perhaps could have specified that part of the prediction was that if QE was used substantially more to deal with said shock, it would lead to hyperinflation. What we have now looks (to me) like bad inflation but not hyperinflation.

I don't know if you mean to be serious, but in case someone takes this seriously..

- China GDP is 3x 2007

- USA GDP 1.5x 2007

- New products since 2008: iPhone, Tesla Sedans, Uber, most video streaming services, all commercial VR, wearables. etc.

And probably someone was saying the world economy stopped in 2000, or other doom and gloom.

Exactly. The idea that this is the result of QE is wrong.

If the US prints a tonne of USD and dumps it into the economy what do you think that does to the GDP figure?

China has built ghost cities everywhere over the last 10 years, it's all a mirage.

I mean this is all just the same old central banking nonsense, we've been here before, debt fuelled liquidity leading to massive speculation.

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