Quantitative easing was the father of millennial socialism

Quantitative easing was the father of millennial socialism

Is Ben Bernanke the father of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? Not in the literal sense, obviously, but in the philosophical and political sense.

As we mark the 10th anniversary of the bull market, it is worth considering whether the efforts of the US Federal Reserve, under Mr Bernanke’s leadership, to avoid 1930s-style debt deflation ended up spawning a new generation of socialists, such as the freshman Congresswoman Ms Ocasio-Cortez, in the home of global capitalism.

Mr Bernanke’s unorthodox “cash for trash” scheme, otherwise known as quantitative easing, drove up asset prices and bailed out baby boomers at the profound political cost of pricing out millennials from that most divisive of asset markets, property. This has left the former comfortable, but the latter with a fragile stake in the society they are supposed to build.

The misery of a Ryanair flight is a common tie that binds

A few years ago I was at a wedding in Dublin – an Irish bride and her new English husband. We were all warned to be on our best behaviour. The English family were strangers – and silent, socially awkward strangers at that. The two families had little in common. The...

Its not a fiscal union, its a fiscal straightjacket

Don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining.” This line from The Outlaw Josey Wales, the western, is self-explanatory. In contending that the Fiscal Treaty will solve our dilemma, the European Commission and European Central Bank are pissing down Ireland’s back...