Given that the BoE typically prints an extra £50 billion every month or so (normally following the letter to the treasury explaining why, for the 40th month in a row, there have, yet again, been exceptional and unforeseeable circumstances that the so-called "experts" could ever have prediced), I was wondering: Why don't they just be done with it and print an extra £100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.00? After all, that's where it seems to be heading these days. And the BoE seems to think that more money = "stronger" economy (whatever that means). So we might as well bite the bullet and get it over and done with?

Its a good idea. I've been printing my own money for the last few years and its really made my financial position a lot more tolerable.

Nice one. Presumably you just bought a good quality laser printer, a scanner, some A4 paper and churn the stuff out by the trillion? LOL.It has always struck me as a little odd that cash is, in effect, just a simple piece of paper. I'm actually amazed that the country isn't flooded with Chinese replicas. I guess there must be very sophisticated detection methods operating behind the scenes. It seems to be an incredible vulnerability in the system. I guess they rely on handing out 20 year prison sentences to make sure people don't even try it. If only it were truly possible and lawful to print one's own money like the BoE does... but then I guess it would quickly become worthless. Just like the pound is becoming these days. :)

Bushy! Such occidental assumptions. The first banknotes were created in China during the tang dynasty to improve merchant efficiency. It was many years before WE replicated THEM.

Inflation + reduced yields so major investors pull out of the market as QE is usually deployed to buy up large tracts of financial instruments in the sovereign markets etc. It can work if banks use the surplus to lend but they just hoard it to meet ever rising capital reserver requirement which seems to be a moving target anyway, seeing as Sir Merv think the retail banks could need up to an extra 35Bn to account for continued rightoffs in debt in the Eurozone (ooops 'corrections' as they call them)Lets keep pumping the tyre while we keep finding punctures. Surely if we push enough air in to thin air will seal the gaps?Lovely.

[i]Nice one. Presumably you just bought a good quality laser printer, a scanner, some A4 paper and churn the stuff out by the trillion? LOL.[/i]No need for all that hassle. All you need is a piece of paper, upon which you write a value (I tend to put down £1000, nice and easy figure) and your mark.The waitress at the London restaurant yesterday was well chuffed to receive such a nice tip :)

This thread reminds me so much of this:[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6vi528gseA[/url]

after the autumn statement quantitative easing has been replaced by wantitative seizing.