Quantative Easing Press Release sent to an uncritical BBC

Dear Breakfast,

I am a bit disappointed as to the explanation of Quantative Easing as shown today. I think the viewers would benefit from being told more about what it really entails, especially when it is framed in the context of Pensioners.

I have a little story for you to explain how it really works:

It is as if you are a beer-seller and the Government pitches up at your warehouse in the dead of night with a truck of water and a truck-load of empty barrels. It breaks in without permission, waters down your beer and takes away barrels of beer for its own use. Because it gets first dibs on the barrels, those least diluted will be taken away. You wake up and count your barrels and all seems ok. When you come to sell your beer you find there is more in the marketplace than before and what you have is weaker, so the price you get is lower. Your beer is now less valuable yet the State has beer - money - it never had.

It is theft, pure and simple.

THAT is what QE is. I think the public should be told what is happening. Pensioners should be told that raising their savings interest rates is pointless if the £s they get out are then worth even less. Workers need to be told that their salaries and savings are being diluted. We are all being robbed and to do what? "Try" and "see" if the banks "might" lend?

The BBC is public service broadcasting and has a charter to educate and inform. While the fact about QE is not being expressed, this is not happening. A sound pound is my and my party's aim yet this is being undermined. We would like to have the opportunity to put the truth about QE forward.

brgds

Tim Carpenter
Head of Policy
Libertarian Party, UK
www.lpuk.org