Quantitative Easing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing

The term quantitative easing refers to the creation by a central bank of a pre-determined quantity of new money out of 'thin air'^[1] as the start of a process to increase the country's money supply. This new money is injected into the private banking system by using it to purchase government securities and crediting the bank accounts of the vendors of those securities (a process called open market operations). Quantitative easing can basically be understood as a method of 'printing money' although today the new money is generally created electronically rather than physically printed.^[1]