Stacy Summary:  Um . . . no duh.  And once you introduce these sort of welfare programs, it is very, very difficult to get rid of them.

• [UPDATE]:  How Goldman profits from low interest rates

• Banks Game Quantitative Easing

Guess who the real winners are? Surprise, surprise, it’s the banks,  whether they are acting as intermediaries between the different arms of government in the execution of QE or trading into the anticipated government intervention, the banks are raking it in – it wasn’t rocket science for the banks to work out that if the government was buying gilts, yields would fall, and yield-hungry investors would pile into high-yield bonds and equities – and to position themselves accordingly. This is one of the main reasons that recent investment banking results have been so strong, so it is a bit rich when these results are then presented as proof that the business is solid.

Defenders of QE will argue that it was supposed to bolster banks – but only in order to help them replenish capital and lend again, surely, not to boost their trading profits.