In recent years, the Federal Reserve has engaged in a policy of quantitative easing. In large part because of that policy, the stock market is at an all-time high. But do we have a free market anymore?

In the old world, a log was cut into boards. Groups of buyers would then bid on those boards until a price was established. It was a messy, emotional process.

Quantitative easing has done away with that problem. Why not skip that messy process altogether with the goal of maintaining the status quo with a virtual market?

Virtual boards and virtual houses could be used to go along with the virtual economy. The problem arises when a homeowner goes to sleep in a virtual bed in his virtual home, built of virtual boards on a winter evening that dips to 20 below zero. In the morning he would not be virtually dead, he would be really dead.

Government manipulation of what should be a free market will have dire consequences. The Federal Reserve has way too much power.

Stimulus should be voted on by Congress in an open forum so that voters can see who stands where.

Freedom should have no virtual component.

Andy Bennett, Buckfield