CNBC reports:
The Federal Reserve is putting some of its post-crisis actions under a magnifying glass and not liking everything it sees.
In a white paper dissecting the U.S. central bank's actions to stem the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009, Stephen D. Williamson, vice president of the St. Louis Fed, finds fault with three key policy tenets.
Specifically, he believes the zero interest rates in place since 2008 that were designed to spark good inflation actually have resulted in just the opposite. And he believes the "forward guidance" the Fed has used to communicate its intentions has instead been a muddle of broken vows that has served only to confuse investors. Finally, he asserts that quantitative easing, or the monthly debt purchases that swelled the central bank's balance sheet past the $4.5 trillion mark, have at best a tenuous link to actual economic improvements.
There's more:
But as for spurring inflation, reducing employment or otherwise generating sustained economic activity, the results, particularly for QE, are "at best best mixed." In addition to muted inflation, gross domestic product has yet to eclipse 2.5 percent for any calendar year during the recovery, while wage gains, and consequently living standards, have been mired around 2 percent or less.
The failure of intervention! Isn't long past time we go to a laissez-faire society where interest rates are determined by supply and demand?
