Joining Sandra (sensible center) Pianalto, we have St Louis Fed President Bullard ’downplaying’ the jobs report:
The recent nonfarm payrolls report was disappointing, but not enough to substantially alter the contours of the U.S. outlook.
Policy is already easy:
Current policy is already very easy, as the policy rate remains near zero and the balance sheet remains large.
Echoing Plosser, he says:
A change in U.S. monetary policy at this juncture will not alter the situation in Europe. (And obviously we´re ready for the European fallout).
So let´s ‘wait & see’, because:
The outlook for 2012 has not changed significantly so far.
Given the Fed’s general pattern of being behind the curve, it seems even less likely they would be proactive heading into a Presidential election. I think unemployment would have to rise several tenths or the stock market fall another 10% before the Fed is willing to go beyond Operation Twist.
Unfortunately, you could be right
Hayek dismissed central planning due to the “knowledge problem”, but I think what we’ve seen here is the failure of central planning on a grand scale due to sheer technical incompetence. The rut goes back to the absolute lack of logical and cogent thinking in macroeconomics classes around the country. I seriously hope Scott gets to writing that textbook next year…
When I did first year Economics, I loved the Microeconomics set out in the first half, it was such a powerful tool of analysis. Then we did Macroeconomics in the second half, and my reaction was “what is this ad hoc crap?”. (I already had two degrees in three other disciplines by then and some years working in the public service, so was hardly a typical undergraduate.) It basically took Scott Sumner to convince me that there was something to macroeconomics after all, so I agree entirely.
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