Today Ben Bernanke announced that he would print up $600 billion dollars, with which he will buy government bonds.
A few years ago, $600 billion sounded like a lot of money. Today, that's just an average government-sized chunk of change.
To put it in perspective, take a look at this helicopter:
[[wysiwyg_imageupload:515:height=247,width=249]]
That's the Boeing CH-47D Chinook. It can lift over 11,000 kg, or 13 tons. Ben Bernanke will need 400 of these EACH DAY for the next six months. If he could load up each one with 13 TONS of dollar bills, then they could deliver the $600 Billion.
That's fifty thousand Chinook sized loads of cash.
Twelve guys in a room this week just decided to print up, digitally, on their computers, $600 Billion dollars.
But they can’t print gold.