The Biggest Losers Of The Past 5 Years

You could argue that economic policy makers have done a disappointing job over the past five years, trying to get advanced economies back on their feet.

Growth is still slow in the US, and job creation is subpar.

But in a sense, the past five years have been a huge vindication for mainstream economic approaches, as these huge experiments in recovery have not had the nasty effects that so many people would have predicted.

Consider all of the people who have spent the last few years talking about dollar collapse, hyperinflation, and debt crises.

We won't name names out of politeness, but we're pretty sure you know who they are.

They've been proven spectacularly wrong.

Here's a chart showing the US dollar, even as the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve has gone bananas. The dollar has stayed in a pretty stable range, while the Fed's QE has taken it into uncharted territories.

And here are US borrowing costs vs. the national debt. The national debt has exploded, while US borrowing costs have remained tame. Gone down, actually.

Readers of these pages have seen all these charts a million times before.

But the degree to which these people who predicted doom at every unconventional policy measure have been wrong is truly remarkable.

Mainstream economics has its flaws, and can't answer everything. But those on the fringes who thought that everyone in positions of power were making catastrophic mistakes have had a horrible time of it.