Printing money won't save us from the next wave of deflation

As concerns about a double-dip recession grow, central bankers' thoughts must be turning to the printing presses again. But quantitative easing has failed twice before - in Japan and in the US. And it's unlikely to work now. John Stepek explains why.

Let's assume for the moment that all the talk of a double-dip recession will translate into the real thing.

What's likely to happen? Well, another dose of quantitative easing or money printing as we like to call it seems the most likely reaction. The anti-austerity crowd will bray "we told you so". Governments will panic in response, anxious not to be accused of driving the economy into a depression.

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John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.