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Perhaps the only major result of ECB intervention in the past few years has been the boosting of asset prices, as the market is awash with cheap money.
Bingo. Cheap financing does not mean affordable assets. Quite the contrary. Prices are bid up to the return margin of those can get the cheap financing. Everyone else is priced out of the market for everything of any consequence, and the Serious People are amazed to see no positive results from their cash dumping. Instead, those who could get the financing end up hoarding the assets at speculative prices (See "Onset of Implosion of Every Financial Bubble Ever".), and everyone else is living hand to mouth, except for a fortunate few who hoard a few bucks/euros/yen because they can't actually spend it on anything. In spite of what the Austro-Chicago tools preach, that is a liquidity trap and a deflation spiral, and giving more cheap money to the Ueberklass won't correct it (but then the Ueberklass doesn't thing anything needs correcting).
Also agree that if interest rates are zero then I guess many asset prices will go nearly to infinity, at least those assets on which people with access to cheap financing are bidding - New York or London appartment prices anyone????
The other factor is that the increasing accumulation of capital by the 1% is resulting in a "savings glut" with little prospect of much of a return on any investment, let alone bank deposits. Thus inequality in an of itself can drive asset prices higher leading to even greater inequality - until the next asset price bust in any case. Most recent purchasers of property in ireland have been private wealthy individuals with no need to borrow in any case, or hedge funds with gazillions to spend in search of a big return.
Small businesses and mortgage buyers are still finding it difficult to get bank loans for working capital or home purchase. The banks are still sitting on a lot of money - hence the need for negative interest rates to encourage them to do what a bank should be doing in any case. Index of Frank's Diaries
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