Fed’s QE policy imposes $360 billion tax on savers -- by Neil Munro, The Daily Caller

The federal government has imposed a virtual tax on savers, costing them $360 billion since 2007, according to a new report by the research division of a major management consulting firm.

The Federal Reserve’s “Quantitative Easing” policy has dropped interest rates to almost zero, effectively taxing the flow of interest payments to older people who have diligently saved cash for emergencies or retirements, according to the “discussion paper,” which is titled “QE and ultra-low interest rates: Distributional effects and risks.”

The virtual tax had the effect of quietly transferring $900 billion to the federal government, and also boosting revenue for cooperating big banks by $150 billion, says the report, which was produced by the McKinsey Global Institute, which is run by one of the world’s major management-consulting firms, McKinsey & Company

“Our headline finding is that ultra-low interest rates have produced significant distributional effects,” said the report, which estimated that lower interest rates have cost U.S. savers $360 billion since 2007.

The “QE” term is shorthand for “Quantitive Easting,” which is a euphemism for the legal creation of new money by the U.S. Federal Reserve. The money is used by the Fed to buy packages of shaky mortgage securities on Wall Street, many of which were bought by regulated banks during the housing bubble that eventually popped in 2007.

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