Sublime

By 2014, five years after the end of the Great Recession, US productivity growth trailed at half its historic average.2 Under Ben Bernanke, America’s central bank wasn’t standing pat, as it had done in the early 1930s. In fact, the Fed’s balance sheet expanded by more than the total dollar increase in US national income.3 Across the Atlantic, the

M0 (also known as the monetary base or high-powered money), which is equal to the total liabilities of the central bank, that is, cash plus the reserves of private sector banks on deposit at the central bank; and M1 (also known as narrow money), which is equal to cash in circulation plus demand or ‘sight’ deposits.