Here's a more immediate answer. Yes, QE is stoking asset prices, but then that was what it was supposed to do, and no, it probably isn't that dangerous. Asset bubbles are never healthy developments, for they lead to capital misallocation and big losses for those who join the party too late. But they are not necessarily dangerous unless accompanied by leverage, or the use of debt, to gear up the exposure.  Ever since financial and economic Armageddon was supposedly averted last March, the price of almost all assets from equities to commercial property, and from emerging market to sub-junk corporate debt, has been rising like topsy. Spreads are flattening to pre-credit crunch levels.  With short term interest rates at close to zero, the effect of central bank purchases of low risk assets is to encourage sellers to deploy the cash in buying more risky stuff. Once these "animal spirits" return to asset markets, they should in theory re-establish themselves in the real economy too.  To bears, QE builds another house of cards on top of the debris of the old one. To bulls, QE is merely a way of kick starting a stalled engine so that normal economic activity can be resumed. The Bank must decide where the balance of the argument lies but, with the economy still showing only tentative signs of recovery, it seems most unlikely QE will be brought to a close just yet. The risks of collapse back into recession seem rather greater than another runaway boom.  There's too much spare capacity in the UK economy for QE to pose any near term inflationary danger, while its depressing effect on sterling is regarded by most MPC members as a positive boon, in that it encourages a rebalancing of the UK economy towards external demand.  My worry is that policymakers are placing too much reliance on QE to bring about a sustainable recovery. Unaccompanied by a radical tax cutting agenda, the level of growth necessary to make decent inroads into the fiscal deficit will struggle to establish itself. A renewed spike in asset prices is frankly the least of our problems right now.  Here's a tale of two airlines. One has just announced a strong rebound in profits, the other will later this week unveil a thumping great loss. One promises to pay its first ever dividend, the other has again had to cancel. In the first case, passenger numbers are still rising strongly, with the other, they are falling fast. At one airline, cabin crew threaten to strike over pay, redundancies and working practices, at the other there are no unions to fight.  OK, so let's not labour the comparison any further. It would be too cruel. Besides, beyond the fact that both of them are run by an Irishman and are in the same line of business, Ryanair and British Airways have little else in common. Ryanair is a low cost upstart concentrating on short haul European routes, British Airways is focused on long haul, premium, and in one guise or another has been around since the birth of mass aviation. Crippling legacy costs are up against the clean slate of the new entrant.  Normally when you see a company growing at the pace of a Ryanair in an apparently mature industry dominated by monopolistic incumbents, you'd have good reason to be suspicious. Think Northern Rock and you have the classic example of a company that goes up like a rocket and comes back down as a spent stick.  Yet Michael O'Leary, Ryanair's famously pugnacious chief executive, has been defying the sceptics for so long now that you have to believe he's for real. What's more, his answer to the downturn – which was to slash prices – appears to have paid off. An average 17pc fall in prices for the first half has yielded 18pc more passengers.  Is Ryanair's growing reliance on ancillary charges – the sort of stuff that used to be part of the fare – and routes to obscure places in Eastern Europe going to prove its undoing? There's little sign of it so far, except perhaps in one regard. Mr O'Leary threatens to cancel future orders with Boeing and instead pay the money out in dividends unless he gets a better deal. This hints at a company that will soon be ex-growth.  Yet for now, Willie Walsh, Mr O'Leary's opposite number at British Airways, can only look on and weep. To survive, he needs to become more like Ryanair. To judge by yesterday's meeting of cabin staff at Sandown Park, the workforce has yet to wake up and smell the coffee.  Oh dear. Labour's "Government of all talents" is be replaced if David Cameron becomes PM with "government by corporate big hitters". The idea is to persuade some "serious" people from the world of business to act as departmental non-executive directors so as to change Whitehall culture and help drive through public spending cuts. Even before he gets into government, Mr Cameron seems to be falling victim to Gordon Brown's love of gimmickry. To use business leaders to implement policy is neither a new idea, is unlikely to make any difference, and patronises perfectly able and willing civil servants.  Talent in business rarely translates well into public service. Government is too compromised by politics for the "can do" attributes of business to be effective. Truly accomplished business leaders wisely stick to what they know best and won't do it. Which makes you wonder about the motives of those who do. Can it be for a place in the House of Lords? Surely not.  Governments are there to set policies that work, not to flood the civil service with placemen. Part of what's gone wrong with the public sector is the tendency of politicians to think it grants rights of ownership. Even the obstruction of Sir Humphrey seems preferable to the botched micro-management of government that is today's Number 10 Downing Street. Most businessmen who make the switch eventually retire hurt and frustrated.  As City minister, Lord Myners, a former fund manager, has stopped some stupidity that might have harmed the City, but you can almost see him biting his lip in toeing the Government line on the really important stuff.
Is ''quantitative easing'' helping to stoke a renewed and dangerous bubble in    asset prices? This is just one of the questions the Bank of England must    attempt to answer in coming days. The first &pound;175bn of easing is spent. The    Monetary Policy Committee is due to decide this week whether further to    enlarge it. Then next week a fuller analysis is expected in the Bank of    England's quarterly Inflation Report.