Sorry for the late comment but I’m just running across this thread.
Prices don’t go up if all the new money just ends up under Apple Computer’s proverbial mattress instead of in the hands of someone who is going to spend it.
But as far as I know the mainstream economists like the Fed did not predict that this would happen; they thought quantitative easing would start banks (and others with large cash balances) lending again. If banks had started lending again, by your analysis (which I agree with), we would have seen significant inflation because of the growth in the money supply.
So it looks to me like the only reason the Fed got the inflation prediction right was that they got the lending prediction wrong. I don’t think that counts as an instance of “we predicted critical event W”.
Sorry for the late comment but I’m just running across this thread.
But as far as I know the mainstream economists like the Fed did not predict that this would happen; they thought quantitative easing would start banks (and others with large cash balances) lending again. If banks had started lending again, by your analysis (which I agree with), we would have seen significant inflation because of the growth in the money supply.
So it looks to me like the only reason the Fed got the inflation prediction right was that they got the lending prediction wrong. I don’t think that counts as an instance of “we predicted critical event W”.