It is, he says, only as good or bad as it was before the crisis. Bullard also examines whether current US monetary policy hurts savers. He argues that Fed policy generally and quantitative easing in particular have influenced the real yield earned by savers.
The question is then whether the Fed has helped or hurt the situation by pushing real  5  See Dobbs, R., Lund, S., Koller, T. and Shwayder, A., QE and ultra-low interest rates: Distributional effects and risks, McKinsey Global Institute, November 2013. 6  See Bullard, James, Income Inequality and Monetary Policy: A Framework with Answers to Three Questions, Speech/C.