Quantitative Easing

I had never heard of the term "quantitative easing" before 2008. Whenever you read a term that is so obviously, egregiously euphemistic, you know you're in trouble. In prison terms -- you better be careful about bending over to pick up the soap, lest you get Quantitatively Eased.

Quantitative Easing (the capital letters seem obligatory) is a euphemism for a very, very simple concept: printing boatloads -- nay, fleetloads -- of worthless paper money.

Imagine if you went to your bank and told your bank representative, "The balance in my account is totally inadequate to support my lifestyle. Could you please add one or two zeroes to my dollar balance?" -- and they did it!!

That's Quantitative Easing.

Actually, the Federal Reserve creates the money out of thin air and loans it to the government, but that's really just the government loaning money to itself. Ever try to loan yourself money?

It represents an enormous threat to the future prosperity and stability of our country. That's why they had to come up with a euphemism, because if Bernanke, Geithner or Obama had a press conference and said "print a huge load of worthless paper money" instead of "Quantitative Easing" normal people would have said "What the fuck? Hell, no!"

There's that soap, right there in the corner of the shower. Go on. Bend over. Pick it up. Do it. They've got your back....