How and when does the Federal Reserve unwind the unprecedented level of monetary policy accommodation?
That's the biggest question in the world of finance today. We're in uncharted territory; no one knows for sure.
Carnegie Mellon economics professor Allan Meltzer is the author of the excellent work
A History of the Federal Reserve. Diana Furchtgott-Roth (who is no slouch herself when it comes to understanding the macroeconomy) offers a concise rundown of a few of Meltzer's key points:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/eas...=home_carousel
Note particularly this excerpt:
Former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner believed in taking care of today’s problems today, and letting tomorrow take care of itself.
(end of excerpt)
Got that? It's assumed that tomorrow will "take care of itself." (That's going to be a tough one.)
Of course, much of the idea of ZIRP and quantitative easing (QE) is to reflate the housing market and push money out into risk assets. One important point to remember is that stock prices partly undergird pension funds in both the private and public sector, whose managers have made projections assuming higher rates of return than are realistic in these days of ultra-low bond yields. But monetary policy actions such as these have always been considered emergency measures, not policy prescriptions to be kept in place year after year.
And it's important to note that ultra-easy monetary policy and loose fiscal policy go hand in hand. One enables the other.
We've gotten ourselves in quite a bind. Extrication is going to be very difficult, to say the least.