Age of Easy Money (full documentary) | FRONTLINE
Publisher: FRONTLINE PBS
Date: March 14, 2023
Key points made for why we like:
- Low interest rates stimulates the economy - more spending, more borrowing by consumers and businesses
- The initial Quantitative Easing (QE) done by the Fed in 2008 had unintended consequences; banks didn't lend the trillions of dollars injected into the system, instead they invested it in bonds which fattened their balance sheets
- President Donald J Trump appointed Jerome Powell (JPow) as head of the Fed
- The initial attempt of Quantitative Tightening (QT) was not well received by Wall Street and Donald Trump; this lead to more QE which went on for much longer than originally intended
- The abundance of money (with no place to put it) led to the rise of very speculative assets like meme stocks and crypto