Oh the dilemma; step in with QE3, maybe call it QE 2 1/2… or step aside and perhaps even turn the screws a little (raise rates, bank reserve requirements, sell treasuries, etc.) to ward off the inflationary effects of trillions in stimulus money??
If Bernanke’s beard wasn’t already grey, well, it’d already be grey… I assure you, this is the stuff of sleepless nights for a sitting Fed chair. The timing stinks… He’s got to be thinking “we tighten now and we probably screw the very folks who kept me my job.”
While autonomy is supposedly the Fed’s; common sense, given that the President appoints and the Senate approves its leaders, suggests otherwise…
Thus, with November 2012 just around the corner, don’t expect the Fed to play rough with inflation anytime soon. And that’s good news for myopia-stricken Wall Street (it loves easy money)… As for the long-term, hey, don’t sweat the bubbles, interest rates, inflation, etc. Like John Maynard Keynes, the pied piper of present policymakers, always said; “In the long-run we’re all dead…”
The thing is, Keynes never had kids…