We're finally seeing the evidence of QE2 show up in the official numbers. The Monetary Base (the part of the money supply that the Fed controls directly) jumped by $140 billion in the most recent period, and is up about $300 billion since mid-Nov. Virtually all of this increase comes from bank reserves which are sitting idle at the Fed (though they do earn an annual interest rate of 0.25%). The increased reserves, in turn, are what the Fed used to purchase Treasuries.
Despite this new injection of reserves, however, there is no evidence to date of any corresponding increase in the other monetary aggregates. That means that although the Fed has created some $300 billion of bank reserves with a keystroke, the amount of money in the economy continues to grow at a rate that is fully consistent with past growth rates. Conclusion: the Fed has not been printing
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