Prediction: no William Wallace speeches from Ben
December 21st, 2009In the next two years — before the memory of this recession fades, but long enough from now that it doesn’t risk unanchoring expectations — Ben Bernanke will begin peppering his speeches and testimony before Congress with references to some form of history contingent policy (e.g. price level or nominal output targeting, state-dependent inflation targets, etc). This will signal a move of policy in this direction.
I give (much) lower odds that there will be a Volker-esque announcement of an explicit move to such a policy.
We watch too many movies if we think the Fed chairman giving heroic speeches would affect people’s expectations of Fed policy ((At least affect them in the way he or she would want. If Ben gave a speech tomorrow announcing a return to the gold standard, people would think he was crazy.)). As Forrest Gump might say, “policy is as policy does”.
December 21st, 2009 at 10:02 am
Let’s replace the Fed with a computer and let’s have a honest, open debate about how we should program that computer.
December 21st, 2009 at 3:25 pm
That’s crazy talk. What would the economy do without a maestro?
December 21st, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Did my comment go to moderation or was it lost or was I banned? X-0