The paragraph that struck me the hardest in this was the following: "To execute quantitative easing, a trader at the New York Fed would call up one of the prima

The paragraph that struck me the hardest in this was the following: "To execute quantitative easing, a trader at the New York Fed would call up one of the primary dealers, like JPMorgan Chase, and offer to buy $8 billion worth of Treasury bonds from the bank. JPMorgan would sell the Treasury bonds to the Fed trader. Then the Fed trader would hit a few keys and tell the Morgan banker to look inside their reserve account. Voila. The Fed had instantly created $8 billion out of thin air, in the reserve account, to complete the purchase. Morgan could, in turn, use this money to buy assets in the wider marketplace." I still need to research what this means but is it essentially saying that the fed is just giving these large banks money for free under the assumption they will buy assets to pump the market? It seems crazy that the fed is actively selecting winning institutions this way.