QE3

It's expected the FOMC
Will finally enact QE3,
Prodigiously trying
By means of bond-buying
In some way to boost GDP.

If 500 billion is loosed,
There's a zero-point-one percent boost
In the rate of employed,
Which may leave one annoyed
With the gain this investment produced.

"Economists are skeptical about the benefits of another round of bond-buying by the Federal Reserve," writes Phil Izzo in the Wall Street Journal, but nearly all of them expect it, anyway. QE3, the third round of quantitative easing, will comprise more buying of Treasury and mortgage bonds, in a further attempt to reduce long-term interest rates and boost economic activity. Within the economic community, however, expectations for QE3's effectiveness could hardly be lower. 47 forecasters surveyed by the Journal estimate on average that, for every $500 billion in bond purchases, we can expect a 0.1 percentage point drop in the unemployment rate and a 0.2 percentage point increase in GDP. At least there will be no harm done: the group expects inflation to tick up by only 0.2 percentage points.