Pete, we agree on a lot of things, but ZIRP bailed out bad banks and punished the prudent savers. I wholly blame terrible fiscal policy by Democrats from the local level to the federal level for screwing up the economy. Yet the FEDs response was the bail out banks with ZIRP which punishes the responsible people. Moral hazard is real. This low interest rate environment is unrealistic and net harmful.
No banks were rescued by low rates. Sure, there were banks helped by TARP from Oct. 08 to Dec. 09 but the prime rate had already fallen way before that. It's easier to argue that zero rates is what made the banks "bad" in the first place.
punished the prudent savers.
We may disagree as to whether sticking your life savings in a bank savings account is what we'd call "prudent" but any benefit savers get from interest later after setting aside money earlier has to be weighed against inflation. We've had zero rates for the past half dozen years now and during that time the value of savings interest minus inflation has gone up.
I wholly blame terrible fiscal policy by Democrats from the local level to the federal level for screwing up the economy. Yet the FEDs response was...
What, after blaming the Fed for fiscal policy who're we going to blame next, the library? The border patrol? We know the library does not set fiscal policy and neither does the border patrol. The Fed doesn't either. That congress you elected does.