The expectations bluff

From ft.com

“Mad. Mad. Mad. Bernanke’s gone totally MAD, I tell you!” “What’s he thinking with QEternity? It’s so inflationary. AGHH!” But what if, as Dario Perkins at Lombard Street Research wonders this week, that’s exactly the reaction Bernanke was hoping for? You see, when a central bank’s normal tools run dry, all a bank’s really got left are Jedi mindtricks. And that means manipulating people’s minds, on a nationwide (if not global) brainwashing basis. You see, if the central bank can persuade the population to think differently about the future — despite rational instincts telling people otherwise ... (full story)