Contrarian: QE - A lot harder to get out than in

Every once in a while I am forced, reluctantly, away from my ivory contrarian tower, and dumped on to the mean streets of middle Britain to talk to actual, real, living investors and their advisers.

The venue is usually a roadshow of some variety, and my mission is to be contrarian. At the moment, my favourite party trick consists of a challenge for investors to think about how asset allocation works in a world dominated by quantitative easing. I ask the assembled audience the following question: "Would anybody like to guess how long we could be living with low interest rates and QE?" I follow with: "Guess what their average duration is for the length of QE in its various iterations in the future?" When I say '23 years' I used to expect gasps of horror and shock, but now there is...