A failure of ideas - Volcker-worship

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It is to a generation of men who think stagflation is always and everywhere a looming phenomenon. No matter how low inflation goes, they see portents of Weimar. But that neverending 70s show isn't just a phobia of rising prices. It's the idea that the solution to economic pain is more pain. In other words, Volcker-worship.

Whipping inflation didn't exactly make Volcker popular in the short run. It took what was at the time the deepest recession of the postwar period to bring down people's inflation expectations. In other words, it was the paragon of what Very Serious People think about when they think about "leadership": inflicting pain today for a better tomorrow. It just so happened that in this case, it was the right thing to do.

It's not now. Our present problem isn't too little inflation-fighting, but too much. The only bit of good news is this is an easy problem to solve: with interest rates as low as they'll ever be, the government can borrow money and put people back to work. It's really that simple. And besides, there's no reason we shouldn't produce as much as we can now just because we made mistakes before.

But this doesn't make for an exciting narrative. A failure of ideas is much less dramatic than a failure of Leadership™. Where's the sacrifice? The hard-headed vision? Give me penance, not prosperity. Give me hard choices, not easy ways out. But most of all, give me what worked in the past.

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