量化寬鬆 Quantitative Easing

Sources are taken from BBC News - Q&A: Quantitative easing

（以英國為例）首先，在財政機關的允許下，英格蘭銀行藉由創造自己的銀行戶頭「創造」很多錢。

 

銀行希望能夠藉由創造出來的錢刺激消費，並提振經濟，於是開始花錢，以購買金融公司（例如銀行、保險公司、退休基金等）所持有之政府債券為主。

由於銀行購買債券，使得債券價值升高（供需），故債券不再成為吸引投資者的標的。釋出債券的公司轉而投資其他公司或個人。

若金融公司更加積極地借貸，他們所收取的利率應該會降低，促進開銷，刺激經濟。

理論上，當經濟回穩時，英格蘭銀行將先前所購之債券賣出，並且「銷毀」回收的現金。此舉避免創造出來的錢長久地在市場流通（避免通膨）。

關於利率的部分，Wikipedia的解釋：

市場利率的形成，是源於市場機制形成的金融市場，在政府管制利率的市場是沒有意義的。在政府管制的市場，基準利率的高低由金融監管當局直接規定的，並允許其在一定閾值範圍內上下浮動；在利率並非由政府金融監管當局直接規定的市場，市場利率的形成受資金供求雙方的直接影響。一般而言，市場利率是在債券市場上形成的，而具有代表性的債券品種主要是政府債券。當購買政府債券的多方佔主導，即購買政府債券的買方大於賣方，那麼就會抬高債券的實際交易價格，從而導致政府債券價格與實際交易價格的差額減小，進而使得收益率的減小，從而導致市場利率的下降；反之，則市場利率上升。

Currency War

To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill 1874-1965

After reading the article of The Economist posted at Oct 14th 2010 "How to stop a currency war"

The world economy has been on a war footing, and the currency is going to be the weapon, both rhetorically and in practice. There are three main wars, first is the undervalued Yuan, another is the rich world's monetary policy, the other is how developing countries respond to these capital flows. The contention is hot, either to retaliate on China's currency policy or not. If a provocation move is acted, menacing real war will on. But it is not fair to treat China as the only scapegoat, this is a multilateral problem (sotto voce, Brazil, Japan, EU.) Since the global economic debate has been recast in battlefield terms, behind all the smoke and fury, there are in fact battles, for example, tariff setting. The menace of imposing tax on foreign capital inflows, like Brazil recently doubled a tax on foreign purchases of its domestic debt, and Thailand announced a new 15% withholding tax for foreign investors in its bonds. In the article analysis, "there is no room for complacency" of the currency bill is milder than it sounds and it has yet to be passed by the Senate or signed by U.S. president. A truly draconian capital controls are dangerous. So don't be obstinate, this ware is better not to be fought.