For Stiglitz, the Fed can only do harm:
The Fed has consistently failed to understand the links between inequality and macroeconomic performance. Before the crisis, the Fed paid too little attention to inequality, focusing more on inflation than on employment. Many of the fashionable models in macroeconomics said that the distribution of income didn’t matter. Fed officials’ belief in unfettered markets restrained them from doing anything about the abuses of the banks. Even a former Fed governor, Ed Gramlich, argued in a forceful 2007 book that something should be done, but nothing was. The Fed refused to use the authority to regulate the mortgage market that Congress gave it in 1994. After the crisis, as the Fed lowered interest rates — in a predictably futile attempt to stimulate investment — it ignored the devastating effect that these rates would have on those Americans who had behaved prudently and invested in short-term government bonds, as well as the macroeconomic effects from their reduced consumption. Fed officials hoped that low interest rates would lead to high stock prices, which would in turn induce rich stock owners to consume more. Today, persistent low interest rates encourage firms that do invest to use capital-intensive technologies, such as replacing low-skilled checkout clerks with machines. In this way, the Fed may still be contributing to a jobless recovery, when we finally do recover.
Unsaid, but implied, everything is dependent on fiscal policy.
There definitely must be something in the champaign they serve to toast Nobel recipients!
Don’t bother with Stiglitz, Marcus – this is his theory of macroeconomics: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/01/stiglitz-depression-201201
Naturally, Scott and Nick were on his case. Here’s Scott: http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=12324
And here’s Nick: http://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthwhile_canadian_initi/2011/12/the-gizmo-theory-of-the-recession.html
I saw a speech by Stiglitz in Australia once. He’s a great microeconomist, but on macro he’s an irresponsible demagogue. He is desperate to be a left-wing intellectual, and makes arguments that even he must know are absurd, all to hobnob with the likes of Naomi Klein and Robert Reich. Sensible economists stopped paying attention to him a long time ago.
Saturos – I know, but had to have a mention of Stiglitz in my own blog!
Marcus, here’s a post that will interest you: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/06/mexicos_economi.html