Reply #6: I'm not missing it [View All]

[lagged_variable]

I don't think that's what the job of the Fed chairman is. It's to provide long-term stability and growth.

Aside perhaps from the "irrational exuberance" quote, perhaps the most famous thing Greenspan said (or was it Voulker?) was that his job is "to take away the punchbowl just as the party gets going".

Now, I'm hardly an expert in fiscal policy, and I suspect you're not either, but he and I knew damn well that as soon as the rate went up, this would happen. And as long as boards in this website and others keep popping up, pissing and moaning about increasing gas prices, they're going to keep increasing rates out of inflation fears.

The way people on this site talk, there should be no Federal Reserve (or at least Fed chairman) at all; there should just be a rate-cutting machine.

More constructively: what do you think he should be doing instead?