The sky is falling, scream the hysterics: the Federal Reserve is pouring forth dollars in such quantities that they will soon be worthless. Nothing could be further from the truth. As in Japan, the policy known as “quantitative easing” is far more likely to prove ineffective than lethal. It is a leaky hose, not a monetary Noah’s Flood.

So what is the Fed doing? Why is it doing it? Why are the criticisms ludicrous? What should the Fed be doing, instead?

The answer to the first is clear. As the Fed stated on November 3, “to promote a stronger pace of economic recovery and to help ensure that inflation, over time, is at levels consistent with its mandate, the [federal open market] committee decided today to expand its holdings of securities. The committee will maintain its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its securities holdings. In addition, the committee intends to purchase a further $600bn of longer-term Treasury securities by the end of the second quarter of 2011, a pace of about $75bn per month.”