Slate hammers QE2

That's where the inequality problem arises. It's richer households that predominantly own stocks. According to a recent working paper by New York University Professor Edward Wolff, the top 10 percent of Americans own more than 80 percent of stocks and mutual funds. Meanwhile, rising commodity prices whack people lower down the income scale. Soaring food prices are a particular concern in emerging markets, where people may spend more than one-quarter of their income on food, and where price changes can have life-or-death consequences. Rising food prices are also a concern here in the U.S. Hedge-fund manager David Pesikoff noted in a recent letter that U.S. households with less than $40,000 in income—about 40 percent of us—spend about one-fifth of their income on food. That, Pesikoff notes, puts America's lower-income population on par with Bulgaria. (Rising gas prices, for which QE2 might also bear some blame, have socked poorer households as well.)Bethany McLean

What underlying theory would cause price illusion to make the rich richer and poor poorer? Absent the distortionary affects of borrowing cheap money, I have my doubts that price illusion alone causes shortages. My guess is that QE2 allowed Congress to make severe mis-allocations of precious inputs. The commissions and hedge profits are generated as big finance correct Congressional mis-steps.