QE isn't printing money, it is a way to blend treasuries into a finely chopped liquid so that your bank can keep the asset side of its balance sheet just as liquid as it's deposits. Due to liquidity preferences people prefer liquid assets over illiquid assets and therefore demand compensation to give up liquidity. Since the yield on capital is falling, people prefer holding straight up money over investing it themselves in risk bearing assets, this means banks are being flooded with short term demand deposits that can be pulled out at any time. What QE does is effectively make all banks hold treasuries collectively. If one bank sends $1000 to another bank it doesn't have to sell treasuries at the current market rate and instead they just transfer the bank reserves which are a claim on $1000 worth of treasuries. As demand deposits become a greater share of financial capital, the risk of a bank run on a specific bank becomes higher and higher. Basically any bank is at risk of becoming instantly insolvent. The problem here is keeping excessive savings in money instead of capital.

I hate to resort to cliche, but it's just so apropos here:

You are missing the forest for the trees. You know all the details but none of the big picture.

QE is increasing the money supply. Since you object to the pejorative "printing money" we can stop using that phrase. It's increasing the money supply.

> QE is increasing the money supply.

So are home mortgages. So is giving your brother $200 to make rent. So is buying the AR-15 you've been saving for. The money supply is elastic, and responds to economic activity. Harnessing that truth as an engine of growth is the fundamental insight of modern economics.[1]

The contention upthread was some ridiculous hyperbole about "minting dollars out of thin air", and the truth is that... nothing of the sort is happening. At all.

[1] And by extension, arguing against it piecewise like this is tantamount to demanding we all go back to a barter economy backed by hoarded treasure.

.. and I suppose you're an adherent of MMT? [1]

Unfortunately for you, "printing money" is a meme that sticks.

[1] Magical Monetary Thinking