Is the Federal Reserve more "reasonable" than the ECB?
The Federal Reserve's strategy currently seems to be to support the economic recovery, or the prospect of recovery in the future, by a slightly less expansionary monetary policy: slowdown in bond purchases, acceptance of slightly higher long-term interest rates. On the contrary, the ECB's strategy seems to be to maintain a very expansionary monetary policy, with large bond purchases and long-term interest rates remaining very negative in the core euro-zone countries. It is possible to defend the idea that the Federal Reserve's strategy is more "reasonable" than that of the ECB: it limits money creation and the expansion of asset price bubbles; it brings back a yield curve with a positive slope, which is positive for financial intermediaries and for the financing of the economy, while keeping long-term interest rates markedly lower than the growth rate.