Why?
The banks are being DoSed by dollar stuffing anyway? Watch out for those fatty banker livers..... hmmm. Very nice with a side-dish of Weimar pickles.
We now have the announcement that Ben Bernanke’s Fed will buy $45 billion a month in treasuries, QE4, until unemployment reaches 6.5% or his version of inflation exceeds 2.5%. What a surprise! ....
Well, it does appear now that Bernanke was just easing his toe in by announcing the purchase of agency mortgages last September, and is really focused on treasuries. In all probability, he is afraid that the market for treasuries will falter. He can now support it anytime he wants without causing panic.
The next announcement may well remove the $45 billion monthly limit. Then he will be able to finance the government with as much fairy dust money as he likes.
There is always the chance that the foreign buyers will eventually be spooked and it will all come crashing down. But right now the foreign buyers do not have a lot of options and anyway Bernanke retires in a year.
It would be interesting ( and helpful) if Alan Greenspan suddenly had a Saul of Tarsus/ Paul experience and spoke out against his protege Bernanke. Or perhaps Paul Volcker, who admitted that the Fed might be violating the Fed statute in 2008 ( there was really no doubt about it) might speak up? Unfortunately none of this is likely. And we will continue on down the rabbit hole.