No One Knows What to Do

The NY Times had an article which just reinforces what I have been saying for three years since the financial mess began; macroeconomists have no idea what to do, or a corollary is they have no idea about what they are doing. From the far left with Krugman to the libertarian Paul side the positions are all over the place. Nothing seems to work. Imagine if it were engineers and a bridge. Can't do that? Why, because engineering is based upon sound principles. Macroeconomics is religion during the height of the Reformation, or even worse than when they were trying to figure out the Trinity.

As the Times states:

Officials also came to a temporary policy compromise by giving markets clearer guidance on how long interest rates would continue to hover around zero. Some committee members said they wanted to set a calendar deadline, and others preferred to instead peg interest rates to a specific rate of unemployment or inflation. 

The calendar-deadline version won out, and in its public statement the Fed pledged to keep its benchmark short-term interest rate at “exceptionally low levels,” for “at least through mid-2013.” 

There were three dissenters: Richard W. Fisher, Narayana Kocherlakota and Charles I. Plosser.

Not only did they disagree with the mid-2013 language, they all disagreed for slightly different reasons. 

This is worse than the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. No one could make this up. And we expect a recovery? When? Not with these wizards.