The Bank of England’s decision to start printing money — Quantitative Easing, in the jargon — has had mixed reviews from the press.

The potential inflationary effects are the prime concern. Others take the line that the Bank could do little else to boost the money supply, while a few politicians have pointed out that broad money (M4) is already rising by 20+ percent.

A good primer on the pros and cons is given by the BBC’s Business Editor, Robert Peston on his blog:

Will QE work?

Not to be outdone the BBC’s Economics Editor, Stephanie Flanders, also weighs in with an informative piece on how the Americans are doing it — mainly by buying corporate bonds, not Treasuries:

Ahead of the curve

My favourite is by the Daily Mail’s City Editor, Alex Brummer, who today gives an emphatic thumbs down to the whole operation.

Bank’s great experiment may prove gamble too far

Syntagma also greeted the “new dawn” of lumpen monetarism with incredulity:

Watch out for the mashed potato machine

Food for thought.

As Gordon Brown heads for Washington to try to convince Barack Obama to create a “global regulatory system” the new administration should ask itself why listen to a man who failed so conspicuously for 12 years.

In Britain, Brown has come in for stern criticism in recent days for his failure to stop the immense and growing disaster occurring in the British economy.

Lord Turner, new head of the Financial Services Authority (FSA), blames Brown when Chancellor for the failure of regulation which led to catastrophic losses at Northern Rock, HBOS and RBS.

“They existed within a political philosophy where all the pressure on the FSA was not to say ‘why aren’t you looking at these business models?’, but ‘why are you being so heavy and intrusive, can’t you make your regulation a bit more light touch?’,” he said.

“We were supervising people like HBOS within a particular philosophy of the way you do regulation, which I think in retrospect was wrong. I think (the FSA’s actions were) a competent execution of a style of regulation and a philosophy in regulation which was, in retrospect, mistaken.”

Similarly, Bank of England Governor Mervyn King claims he has been shouting warnings for years about risky lending without any response from Brown.

It is on the record that Brown delivered a speech in the City urging them to take even greater risks.

The Prime Minister is now trying to cover up the mess by throwing the kitchen sink at sacked RBS boss Fred Goodwin’s enormous pension. Significantly this was done as the Treasury unveiled its third bank bailout in the form of a £325 billion insurance scheme for desperate RBS.

Meanwhile the head of the Audit Commission, Steve Bundred, warned that public debt is at “Armageddon levels” and will exceed two-thirds of the entire annual economic output of the country.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is forecasting that British GDP will contract 2.8 percent this year, worse than the U.S., the eurozone and Japan.

The IMF expects the U.S. economy to contract 1.6 percent; Japan to shrink 2.6 percent and the eurozone to decline 2 percent. Overall, the IMF expects the global economy to expand 0.5 percent, its weakest showing since the Second World War.

Economists at the IMF also estimated that bank losses may reach $2.2 trillion, almost twice the $1.4 trillion the organization predicted in October.

It warned that, “unless stronger financial strains and uncertainties are forcefully addressed, the pernicious feedback loop between real activity and financial markets will intensify, leading to even more toxic effects on global growth.”

In Britain, the bank bail-out is already projected to take national debt to 8 percent of GDP, and today the Institute Fiscal Studies warned that national debt levels are unlikely to return to the pre-crisis levels for more than 20 years.

If you live in Britain, the part-nationalisation of the banking sector will cost you at least £8,000 ($12,000) in taxes.

£500 billion ($750bn) is a conservative estimate of what taxpayers are paying for Gordon Brown’s plan to bail out the UK banking system. The three-part package includes committing up to £50 billion of taxpayer funds for a part-nationalization of Lloyds TSB, HBOS and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), which is now 57 per cent owned by the government.

Furthermore, the Bank of England will pump at least £200 billion into the money markets to encourage banks to lend to each other again – which should help lower the costs of new mortgages.

The Government is also making a further £250 billion available for banks over the next three years to guarantee medium-term debt which is of dubious quality. This is intended to help restore confidence and get banks lending to each other again.

£500 billion is equivalent to 4,000 new hospitals, or 16 new high speed rail links between London, the north of England and Scotland.

This is the price we are paying for poor regulation of the banks by the governmment in the first place.