With Fraudclosuregate picking up steam and threatening to shut down the US housing market for a while, or at least throw a double handful of sand into the gearbox, the Fed has gone on an all-out propaganda war to try to convince everyone that “inflation is too low” and that such a perilous state justifies another gigantic round of thin-air money printing. Yes, they call it “quantitative easing” to try and inject a note of academic rigor into the conversation, but we can just call it what it is: money printing.
Hardly an hour goes by without the airwaves being inundated with another Fed official making another statement about the “too low” inflation and what we need to do about it.
Atlanta’s Lockhart Says He May Back More Federal Reserve Asset Purchases
Atlanta Federal Reserve President Dennis Lockhart said he may back a second round of purchases of Treasury securities by the central bank to ensure against the possibility of falling prices.
More so-called quantitative easing “is a form of risk management — an insurance policy that is prudent to put in place at this time,” Lockhart said today to the Savannah Rotary Club. “Given the circumstances of sluggish growth and measured inflation that is too low, I give greater weight to the risk of further disinflation leading to deflation.”
Interestingly, and right on cue, the New York Times manages to have a nice, multi-part series on the “dark and subdued” world of deflation, doing their part in a well-coordinated marketing campaign to grease the skids for another round of money printing:
Japan Goes From Dynamic to Disheartened
“Japan used to be so flashy and upbeat, but now everyone must live in a dark and subdued way,” said Masato, 49, who asked that his full name not be used because he still cannot repay the $110,000 that he owes on the mortgage.
Now, as the United States and other Western nations struggle to recover from a debt and property bubble of their own, a growing number of economists are pointing to Japan as a dark vision of the future. Even as the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, prepares a fresh round of unconventional measures to stimulate the economy, there are growing fears that the United States and many European economies could face a prolonged period of slow growth or even, in the worst case, deflation, something not seen on a sustained basis outside Japan since the Great Depression.
by cmartenson 
