Over the three years from September 2008 to September 2011, the Fed increased the size of the monetary base by a total of 183.7%, and produced total NGDP growth of 5.6%.
Interest rate fluctuation has worked to make money artificially cheap in certain periods since the Fed inherited total control of monetary policy in 1971 after the dollar was delinked from gold.
Adjusted for variations in purchasing power parity, the ascent of emerging markets is even more impressive: the International Monetary Fund forecasts that the total GDP of emerging markets could overtake that of the developed economies in 2014.