The "serious" people still have a chance to blow up the world economy.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an influential Paris-based think tank supported by the governments of the world’s advanced economies. The O.E.C.D. is a deeply cautious organization; what it says at any given time virtually defines that moment’s conventional wisdom. And what the O.E.C.D. is saying right now is that policy makers should stop promoting economic recovery and instead begin raising interest rates and slashing spending.


The OECD is quite specific: it wants the Fed funds rate to rise by 3.5 points by end-2011, even though its own forecast says that unemployment then will still be over 8 percent and inflation under 1 percent.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/31/opinion/31krugman.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/anti-straw-men-and-austerity/

Why would you want to raise the Fed Funds rate to more than 2.75% above inflation (I think the current rate is 0.25%) while in an ongoing unemployment crisis?

To fight inflation that doesn't exist? To make it harder to borrow money, since credit is sooooo loose right now. To "cool off" the economy, reigning in all this runaway economic expansion? (Ha!)

Or because it would lead to needless suffering by ordinary people, and thus make you seem "serious"?

This comes around every damn day... people spouting economic advice not much more sensible than calls to return to the gold standard and it being taken seriously only because it promises to make human beings more miserable.

(Like people who only trust medicine that tastes bad.)