I promised to comment on all the web clippings that Brad Delong
doesn't have time for. Ooops ended a sentence a prepostion with. I meant "that Brad DeLong doesn't have time to comment on" damn

I was to careless to think that this is about economics, that is work, ugh. If I was willing to write about economics I wouldn't be blogging.

Oh well a bet's a bet (although I am already 2 hours late doing this).

Mark Thoma ??? writes " I’ve been asking how the Fed should respond in a hard landing."
He has some reasonable sounding arguments for loose monetary policy in the case of a hard landing. I have no patience for trying to pretend to take inflation hawks seriously. I don't see why 2 to 3 % inflation is noticibly better than 10 % inflation.

I know that the American public overwhelmingly disagrees with me (in the 70s polls showed that 12% inflation was rated by far the most serious problem faced by the USA). I think that economists all understand that people thought this, because they think inflation is price increases not wage and price increases. That is they imagined that inflation somehow inflation could have been reduced without reducing the growth of nominal wages or employment. That is they imagined that somehow with less inflation real wage growth would be much higher at no cost to anyone.

Now I understand the reasons why it may be useful to have a FED chairman who is irrationally against moderate inflation, and I agree that one should try (hopelessly) to over rule this irrationality when there is a recession, but I find it undignified to pretend to believe that this inflation is different and, so, should be temporarily accepted when I really believe that moderate inflation is no big deal, in fact a tiny deal.