Addicted to QE

It's not because investors expect money-printing to end that US Treasury yields are rising, says Merryn Somerset Webb.

I met an expert on drug addiction this week. We talked about the extent to which addicts can be functioning members of society, and what it is that can push them over the edge from functioning to non-functioning. I'll write some more about this and on the economic consequences of our drugs policies on the blog at some point in the coming weeks (those who want a head start on the subject can read Dr Max Rendall's Legalize).

But, rather like many other things, the conversation made me think of quantitative easing (QE) in Britain, and in particular in America. For a long time now we have been almost drowning in newly created electronic money. It has had some pretty trying side effects not least the astonishing transfer of wealth from poor to rich, thanks to regular inflation and soaring asset prices. But so far, our economies are putting up a good show of producing a degree of normality.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.