If you want to know what the future of the American economy looks like — when the unemployment rate will return to below 6 percent, or when annual growth will climb back above 3 percent — it’s helpful to stop thinking for a moment about those families in serious financial distress. That’s because the future of the U.S. economy relies, in large part, on another group of people living in fear: the millions of Americans who have a little disposable income.

The decisions that the twitchy class faces may not be the most challenging, but they are, from a purely economic perspective, perhaps the most important. Imagine a couple in their 30s, living in the starter home that they bought eight years ago. Their kids have outgrown that tiny shared bedroom, and the den is crowded with toys. The couple are eager to buy a bigger place — they have paid down their debts and built up their savings — but they’re not quite over the terror of the financial crisis and sluggish recovery. Even though they can afford it, they worry that now isn’t the best time to splurge. What if one of them loses a job? What if the other doesn’t get a raise for years? The agita still comes easily.

Though it doesn’t always seem true, times actually have changed. During the worst of the recession, people were just plain broke. Their debts were at historic highs, and their savings were at record lows. That’s no longer the case. American households have reduced much of that debt and built up some savings. They’re just not spending it yet. So whereas the Federal Reserve was once tasked with performing life support on the financial sector, it’s new challenge is more subtle but nearly as complicated. It needs to convince consumers that they can trust the economy again, that now really is the time to jump back into the stock market or buy that bigger house.

To that end, the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, has announced a third round of what’s called quantitative easing, the controversial strategy that the Japanese first experimented with in 2001. Then as now, quantitative easing has a fairly simple goal (to unstick a stagnant economy, that is), but like nearly everything that the Fed does, it’s also shrouded in confusing language and technical details. And it’s not exactly the most direct stimulus either.

As the only institution that can invent new dollars with a few keystrokes, the Fed has pledged to buy $40 billion in mortgage-backed securities every month. Its goal is to force banks and investors to take on more risk. Some mortgage-backed securities were among the worst financial products sold during the housing bubble, but most, now, are backed by the U.S. government and about as safe as an investment can get. And in the Fed’s eyes, that’s the problem. Banks — much like a still-traumatized family — are so terrified of taking any risks that they’re helping keep the economy in this morass. Too much risk creates crises, but too little prevents economic growth. Quantitative easing allows the Fed to take away those mortgage-backed securities and force banks to do something riskier with their money, like offer competitive loans to riskier people. Once everyone is putting his money into slightly less safe, and slightly more productive, investments, the economy will take off. That’s the theory, anyway.

Is $40 billion per month enough to transform the $10 trillion U.S. mortgage market? Probably not on its own, but Q.E. 3, as it is commonly known (distinguishing it from two earlier, tamer efforts, Q.E. 1 and Q.E. 2), has an even more subtle and important mission. Its real goal, through indirect psychological pressure, is to kick-start the consumption and investment machine that makes up 85 percent of the U.S. economy. When Bernanke announced that the Fed would be investing in the mortgage market indefinitely, he signaled that he’s had it with short-term fixes. His Fed is committed, he said, to taking extraordinary measures until unemployment goes down. In Fed-speak, Q.E. 3 is a clear message to banks, investors and private companies that the economy is going to grow, and the riskiest thing they can do is to hold on to their cash and riskless securities and watch their competitors profit.

It’s hard to find unambiguous support for Ben Bernanke these days. Many economists who champion quantitative easing contend that he has waited far too long. Many politicians, economists and market players have argued that Q.E. 3 is fundamentally flawed and dangerous for numerous other reasons. The Fed’s infusion won’t be used for smart investments, they suggest, but will instead spark inflation, especially in crucial commodities like oil. This would slow the economy’s mild recovery even further.

Part of the resistance is undoubtedly the fact that the policy’s core idea is hard for many to embrace. Q.E. 3 is rooted in the theories of John Maynard Keynes, the loved/despised British economic giant of the early 20th century whose ideas are generally, though not exclusively, associated with Democrats. Keynes famously explained the Great Depression, in part, through an economic idea known as the paradox of thrift. In tough economic times, the notion goes, each person might be doing something that seems perfectly sensible, like saving money instead of buying a new house. But the cumulative impact of everyone’s doing the right thing has a very bad outcome. When everyone saves, there’s much less economic activity and much less growth. Oddly, Keynes argued, the best way to make an economy healthy again is to persuade people and businesses to be a bit more reckless with their money.

For many, this is just nuts. How can irresponsibility be the most responsible thing for a central bank to promote during a recovery? But quantitative easing’s champions respond that they know the policy works because they’ve seen it happen. In 2001, Japan looked a bit like the U.S. does now. The bubble that burst in the 1990s was followed by years of slow, stumbling recovery. Desperate economists around the world — including, notably, Ben Bernanke — were pleading with the Bank of Japan to drop its cautious policies in favor of creating money and spending it. Finally, the bank did just that. Soon after, the bold risk-taking led to a recovery. Or it didn’t. Many critics have countered that the economy was already recovering on its own, and that, if anything, the Bank of Japan’s last-ditch efforts had little effect.

No matter when the unemployment rate drops to 6 percent, or annual growth returns to above 3 percent, it’s going to be hard to know definitively whether quantitative easing ever sparked a family to buy a new house. I was thinking about this when New York City banned the sale of large sodas. Over the next few years, it’s quite possible that the city’s obesity rates will indeed drop. And it’s also possible that the soda ban will play a role — either directly by taking soda out of our hands or indirectly by reminding us that obesity is a serious problem. It’s also possible that New Yorkers are losing weight for any number of other reasons too. After all, the ban is a result of lots of hand-wringing about overweight Americans. Maybe obesity was already subsiding. It’s just too hard to say.

Public-health experts have tried for years to persuade us to exercise and eat right, and not much works. All the easy, fairly noncontroversial stuff — nutrition labels, food pyramids — have long since been tried and failed. All that’s left is to ignore the problem or try some weird schemes. That’s the position that Ben Bernanke has found himself in, too. He did the easy stuff years ago. He clearly knows that quantitative easing is filled with risks — financial and political — but he also feels that playing it safe and not doing anything radical may be the biggest risk of all. And he wants us all of us to feel exactly the same way.#p#分页标题#e#