Thus The Wall Street Journal today. “The Fed chairman offered a robust defense of the central bank’s easy-money policies and left little doubt that he’s ready to act,” elaborates the newspaper. Hooray! Stockmarkets around the world are delighted by the news. As Mario Draghi, the president of the Central European Bank, shares Bernanke’s convictions and readiness to act, the intrepid investors are over the moon. Many of them will benefit from another dollop of quantitative easing. Handsomely, too. The only thing that is in doubt at this juncture is the effectiveness of easy-money policies. The Fed chairman’s “robust” defense notwithstanding, the fact remains that the previous two exercises of quantitative easing by the Fed have not pulled the American economy out of the doldrums. Not an iota. And that is easy enough to prove from the very fact that more of the same is now supposedly needed. Quod erat demonstrandum.