The following is false, confusing the short-term financing available under QE3 with the cost of financing business investments: > Interest rates are basically

The following is false, confusing the short-term financing available under QE3 with the cost of financing business investments: > Interest rates are basically at zero and have been for some time. When borrowers are paying close to zero interest on loans, that makes money cheap to get. > People with money generally have a choice: save it in interest-paying, risk-free bank accounts or invest it in riskier assets that may pay more money over time. When interest is at zero, virtually any other kind of investment is likely to pay more because the risk-free alternative is so lousy. So investment asset bubbles get created. Stocks tend to go up. QE3 consists of a series of very short-term loans (initially they were 1-day loans) that keep being redeemed and reissued, with the promise that the money injected into the system in this way will be taken out in the medium term. (This death sentence on the QE3 money is the reason why the money injected into the economy has not had the inflationary impact predicted by gold bugs). Such very short-term loans are very valuable for financial institutions: they can finance short-term speculative investments and can be used as a partial basis to create longer-term financing. However, they do not provide the kind of investment Business Insider claims. For this kind of investment, you need financing over a period of years. 10-year treasuries, which provide a basline for the cost of longer-term financing, are relatively cheap, at 3.4% interest, but they are most certainly not interest free. Every venture capitalist understands this, I am sure. A competent journalist who covers business financing will understand this too.