Fed's mistake was to extrapolate

Chinese policymakers have been quicker than their US counterparts to face up to the perils of policies initiated in response to 2008 crisis

The temptations of extrapolation are hard to resist. The trend exerts a powerful influence on markets, policymakers, households, and businesses. But discerning observers understand the limits of linear thinking, because they know that lines bend, or sometimes even break. That is the case today in assessing two key factors shaping the global economy: the risks associated with United States' policy gambit and the state of the Chinese economy.

Quantitative easing, or QE (the Federal Reserve's program of monthly purchases of long-term assets), began as a noble endeavor - well timed and well articulated as the Fed's desperate antidote to a wrenching crisis. Counterfactuals are always tricky, but it is hard to argue that the liquidity injections of late 2008 and early 2009 did not play an important role in saving the world from something far worse than the Great Recession.