> The issue is that an investor that previously would have bought a government bond, doesn't suddenly decide to spend that money in the general economy because government bond returns went down. They instead put it into other financial assets, like corporate bonds, the stock market, or perhaps real estate, thus driving a bubble in these asset classes.
What's even scarier is that the ECB has started buying corporate bonds (https://www.ft.com/content/e551c28e-457a-3b62-a8b0-a8e8ca4e5...) directly, which I personally find crazy. I won't even comment on the financial situation in Japan, which I find even more crazy, and where I think that the economic system is partly nationalized "de facto". Under these circumstances the FED policy seems the more rational, which would have been crazy to think that would happen just after 2008.
Even crazier, the criteria for which bonds to buy heavily favor German corporations. At this point the Euro system has become a system to shovel wealth from the periphery to the center at gunpoint.
IMO next step of the ECB will be equity buying, again Central European equity most likely. After that, only People QE is left (which they should have done first), but I don't think their ideology will allow that.
What's even scarier is that the ECB has started buying corporate bonds (https://www.ft.com/content/e551c28e-457a-3b62-a8b0-a8e8ca4e5...) directly, which I personally find crazy. I won't even comment on the financial situation in Japan, which I find even more crazy, and where I think that the economic system is partly nationalized "de facto". Under these circumstances the FED policy seems the more rational, which would have been crazy to think that would happen just after 2008.