I understand this is more of a polemic than a sober analysis, but facts do matter. The purpose of QE was to keep the financial system from failing completely. Like it or not, the poor depend on it as much as anyone does; it is the functional core of this economic system. QE succeeded in that goal.

We do need a better functional core for this economy. I have developed one. It can be thought of as a QE for the masses (though I was working on this idea well before QE was invented). I brief introduction (comparing a DDI to a UBI) is available here in Medium in “DDI: A Minimum Income That Performs Like a Right.”

A DDI is in fact free money. It would make the existing economy self-regulating. As I write in that little essay, a DDI does take the power of controlling the economy out of the hands of the private banking system (headed by the Fed) and the central government — keeping it out of any other hands.