Hobbes is famous for his early and elaborate development of what has come to be known as âsocial contract theoryâ, the method of justifying political principles or arrangements by appeal to the agreement that would be made among suitably situated rational, free, and equal persons.
TODAY the European Central Bank (ECB) launches its long-awaited programme of quantitative easing (or QE), adding lots of public debt to the private kind it has already been buying. Its monthly purchases will rise from around â¬13 billion ($14 billion) to â¬60 billion until at least September 2016.
Quantitative easing. Quantitative easing (QE) is a monetary policy in which a central bank creates new electronic money in order to buy government bonds or other financial assets to stimulate the economy (i.e., to increase private-sector spending and return inflation to its target).