Fed Announces Beginning of the End of QE3

Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.


It’s official: we are tapering. The Fed announced today that it would reduce its QE3 bond-buying program from $85 billion per month to $75 billion per month.

So what does this mean? In a nutshell, markets will probably freak out temporarily. Econ pundits will write about a hundred thousand words today exploring every possible nuance of the decision. Ben Bernanke will tell everyone to calm down. In a day or two, there will be some news about the holiday buying season and the whole thing will be forgotten. Five years from now, there will be several doctoral dissertations about what it all really meant.

Substantively, though, this just isn’t that big a deal. You may now return to your regularly scheduled Obamacare bashing and/or defending.

UPDATE AT 11:12 AM: Apparently the Dow is up 100 points on the taper news. So markets don’t seem to be freaking out after all. If this holds, it will be the most quickly disproven prediction I’ve ever made, and yet another lesson that you should never make predictions. Will I ever learn?

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate