Brad and Miles: Learn your hegemon theory

And the more quantitative easing the Fed undertakes and the larger is its balance sheet the larger is the amount of money the Federal Reserve makes on its portfolio, without running any risks--as long as the economy remains depressed. Delong

What, what.. Profit from selling bonds to the Treasury, the owner of the fiat banker? There is no profit until the Fed sells the bonds. Until then this is pure seigniorage. The market's job is to hold the surplus liquidity by matching the Fed with one or two large investment banks that adjust their portfolios step for step with each adjustment of the Fed portfolio. Eventually Congress gets impatient, as they have done. Brad does not understand his own hegemon theory.

Miles Kimball makes a similar fallacy:

So why can’t the Fed just lower the federal funds rate further? The problem may surprise you: it is those green pieces of paper in your wallet. Because they earn an interest rate of zero, no one is willing to lend at an interest rate more than a hair below zero.  Kimball

OK, the one month rate is at zero. Is the one month rate a quantum constraint for money? Well, most of us get paid on a one month basis, and pay bills on a one month basis so there is some reason top believe we may have a temporal bound. However, we also get aperiodic bonuses, have irregular holidays, change jobs out of phase, and we often put purselves on a three month planning schedule during slow growth. Miles would like to think the formal pay schedule is binding, but he may be deceived by delusions and needs support data.

The Zero Bound is the three month rate, mainly because the economy suffers secular stagnation.  If growth were 3.2%, the Zero Bound will be two week band.  The three month zero bound has nothing to do with money, it is the fastest response time the secular stagnater has to adapt. What ever is stagnating us us doing does by being a slow adapter.
 
What is the adaptation time for Congress and the Prez? Well, looking back five years, Congress has tried about four things. That is a DC which is very constrained by negative side effects, a sure sign the stagnater might just be in the government channel.