Aidan "QE is a very inefficient way of getting money into an economy, but it's better than nothing". The money is not getting into the real economy for production or jobs. It is all for speculation, blowing up derivatives and inflating house prices.

Dr Paul Craig Roberts is the ex-assistant secretary to the US Treasury. According to Aidan conspiracy theorists are oozing from the woodwork. Perhaps there are communists and terrorists under your bed Aidan. The really big terrorists are the financial ones you refuse to acknowledge.
http://kingworldnews.com/dr-paul-craig-roberts-12-20-14/

Have you ever wondered why all of this doom and gloom doesn’t find it’s way into normal news services.

Dickybird,
<<Aidan you appear to have got it all the wrong way round. What evidence do you have that the Gold Standard “keeps people in poverty”>>
It prevents the money supply being expanded as needed.

<<In fact the nineteenth century was enormously successful in lifting people out of poverty. Probably if you take inflation into account it was better than the Twentieth.>>
Technology was enormously successful in lifting people out of poverty in the 19th century despite the hindrance of the gold standard. Unfortunately the economic damage from the gold standard and managed exchange rates continued through most of the 20th century too.

<<Where are your “huge amounts of resources being wasted on acquiring gold”>>
All that gold sitting in bank vaults... did you think governments got it for nothing? Governments could have devoted their resources to improving infrastructure and the education and health of the people. Instead the governments chose to hoard gold while many people remained destitute.

Fortunately the gold standard is dead, so we no longer have that problem.

<<Your last para starting with “QE” indicates that you may be falling into socialist errors>>
How does a socialist error differ from any other kind of error?

<<We are already suffering from incredible excess of spending in the form of fiat money being created,>>
We're not suffering from it, we're merely not benefitting as much from it as we should be.

Arjay
<<The money is not getting into the real economy for production or jobs. It is all for speculation, blowing up derivatives and inflating house prices.>>
The main function of the stock market is to translate speculation into real gains.

Wrecking the real economy by keeping money in short supply is an extremely damaging way of controlling house prices. Land value taxation is a much better way to do it.

<<According to Aidan conspiracy theorists are oozing from the woodwork.>>
No they're not, but conspiracy theorists certainly exist, and you can find a lot of them on the internet. As indeed you have. But why do you choose to believe their claims when they're proven to be false?

<<Perhaps there are communists and terrorists under your bed Aidan.>>
You can make up conspiracy theories about what's under my bed if you want, but please don't let a good story get in the way of the facts!

A Socialist error is that they are so kind hearted that they want to, and frequently do, give away large amounts of money that they do not have. Sometimes they want everyone to have free healthcare (Obamacare) and sometimes it is only to save a Stockmarket crash by giving ever increasing amounts to financial organizations (retail banks and Freddy Mac). Sometimes they don’t know what to do but they have a compulsion apparently to do it anyway (Pink Batts)

Problem is that anything that can be created at no or negligible cost has by definition to be worthless – only Monopoly money. Aidan - under your system how are you suggesting that fiat dollars can be changed into providing real permanent value which does not depreciate annually without fail ? Is it fair that some people, central bankers, have arranged affairs legally so they can create and manipulate economies any way they like ? Or have they unwittingly painted themselves into a corner from which the only escape is a major depression ? Or will it be Weimar Republic inflation ?

The corner they find themselves is that they will lose all credibility if they continue printing money (a lot of credibility has gone already) but if they stop printing money the interest rate will go up, back to normal levels, and the recipients of all that stupendous amount of credit will be unable to pay and will collapse. Either way we have to return to a system that uses as “money” something that cannot be created out of thin air (or thin plastic). It also needs other various characteristics, but the only serious applicant for the office is Gold

A quick answer to 579 on why the mainstream news does not print these warnings is twofold. One my stockbroker several years ago told me “Yes, you are quite right, but there is money to be made in the mean time” and secondarily prophecies of doom and gloom do not sell newspapers.

Philip S made the comment "With some heads buried so far in the sand all one can do is patiently wait for what is inevitable then say "I told you so". He is absolutely right !