Ben BernankeSince the onset of the 2008 financial crisis the Federal Reserve has twice attempted to stimulate economic growth through a somewhat unorthodox maneuver called quantitative easing, wherein the Fed buys back Treasury bonds from big banks. When Fed chairman Ben Bernanke last year announced the $600 billion second round of quantitative easing (which within the finance world goes by the nautical-sounding nickname "QE2"), he warned that it might have some unanticipated consequences. "We do not have very precise knowledge of the quantitative effect of changes in our holdings [of Treasuries] on financial conditions," he said. One of these side effects turns out to be that, at least in the short term, the rich got richer and the poor got poorer.
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