Bank of England turns on the printing presses

[-:Undertaker:-]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/f...cut-rates.html

Bank of England delivers £50bn QE, as China and ECB cut rates

The pain in the global economy was laid bare on Thursday after central banks in the UK, Europe and China launched a series of interventions to boost growth.

The interventions, which were not officially co-ordinated, came as Mario Draghi, the ECB president, confirmed that "some of the previously identified downside risks to euro area growth have materialised", and the Bank warned that the crisis on the continent was eroding confidence in the UK.

The Bank of England switched on the printing presses with a third round of quantitative easing, adding £50bn to the £325bn already completed, while the European Central Bank (ECB) and China cut interest rates.

China's move, in particular, came as a shock. It was the second time in a month that Beijing had reduced rates, prompting speculation that the world's second largest economy and engine of global growth could be stalling.

The interventions, which were not officially co-ordinated, came as Mario Draghi, the ECB president, confirmed that "some of the previously identified downside risks to euro area growth have materialised", and the Bank warned that the crisis on the continent was eroding confidence in the UK.

Following the ECB action, the euro fell to close to a three-and-a-half year low against the pound.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development said global growth had picked up a little in the first quarter of the year, to 0.4pc from 0.3pc in the final quarter of 2011, but remained weak.

It says it all, we're ruled by people who think the way to get out of debt is to keep spending more money and print more money (to spend) alongside it. Our government and the Bank of England actually believe that typing more numbers into a computer will improve the economy, can you believe it? it's madness.

I'm not always against printing money (or 'quantative easing' as they call it) because in situations such as this it can help - thats another reason for the Euro crisis, the ECB can't print en masse and thus the southern nations are unable to devalue - but we ought to realise that while our governments continue to spend, it will only continue to get worse ... along with our currencies being destroyed as the Roman currency was when it was devalued so that Emperors could spend on wars. As Ron Paul advocates, end the Federal Reserve (or the BoE for us) and return to a gold standard asap.

Thoughts?

[dbgtz]

There's nothing wrong with a "credit" currency in theory, but it's when the system is abused as such when it becomes a non viable option. So I wouldn't say we would need to return to gold, just a restructure is required in how the current system works.

Onto the actual article, I oppose them doing this. This is worse than someone counterfeiting money themselves, because this just goes to banks (as far as I'm aware) who can't even control their own money whereas if someone done it for themselves, at least it could end up to the people who need it most.