Although the debate [austerity] relates to the UK, I think it has a much wider resonance. And indeed, to a student of history, it has fascinating parallels; economic policy-making was rethought in the mid-1970s, but the same debates are popping up again. [...] Margaret Thatcher on ZIRP & QE "Let us print the money instead. Because what that is saying is let us quietly steal a cerain amount from every pound saved in building societies, in national savings, from every person who has been thrifty." [...] [ZIRP & QE is no free lunch - it has consequences, known and unknown, unintended.]