Sometimes such events portend a wider set of economic events, but just as often, they don’t. In the present instance, it is important to stress that long-term debt markets and core funding markets for financial institutions have not been impaired. These markets remain open and it is still the case that highly rated private borrowers and most sovereigns can borrow at remarkably low cost.
In that case, the central bank would have to spend many times as much and would still not be sure that deflation will be overcome successfully. That is the risk we wanted to rule out.