Those Federal Reserve governors pushing Ben Bernanke to end quantitative easing should do what he’s already done: study Japan.
In 2006, Toshihiko Fukui, the Bank of Japan’s governor at the time, tried his hand at the monetary tapering the Fed is considering. It didn’t go well, and Japan’s deflation-plagued economy is worse off for Fukui’s policies in 2006. Those missteps offer a lesson to the Federal Open Market Committee, which today wraps up a two-day meeting: don’t let ideology cloud economic reality.
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