DeLong posts a quote from Joe Gagnon

Away from the zero bound, monetary policy can stick to buying safe short-term assets because money yields zero and all other assets have a positive yield. At the zero bound, as you note, for monetary policy to have any effect it must buy other types of assets that do not have zero yield. But in both regimes the way monetary policy works is by pushing down the rates of return on financial assets. That is quite distinct from fiscal policy which works by increasing demand directly, albeit at the expense of higher rates of return on financial assets. And of course, helicopter drops increase demand directly without increasing rates of return on financial assets.

So maybe QEII isn't a helicopter drop, technically speaking? I don't know, I can't really follow what they're talking about. Is the Fed doing fiscal policy in Gagnon's view? So you push down the rates of return on financial assets and then what happens?