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Wait - but quantitative easing usually involves buying back government bonds (in recent times it has also involved buying riskier instruments like collateralized debt obligations (eg. bundled mortages from freddy mac/fannie mae))

But government bonds are issued by the government as a form of govt debt to finance the federal government deficit.

So doesn't that mean that money IS being printed to finance government deficit? It's just that it goes through a slightly convoluted path to get there?