Except we've never tried the laissez faire alternative ... unless you think pre-Fed was that time. It was only for short period of times in our history, and then the know better crowd or those with a buddy or two in banking to rig things to their benefit, put an end to it. Every time. What we have tried in the 20th and 21st centuries is failed Keynesian print print print, why (?) .... because we can. Not because it works. Were booms and busts done away with? No they just get bigger and bigger ... until. This year manias are exploding all around us and Powell is calm asleep at the wheel. But I like you analogy. Excessive money printing is like cancer, a disease.
Call it whatever you like, we had a much more hands-off approach to reducing the number and severity of recessions in the past and as I showed we had far more and more severe recessions. The experiment of the last 150 years has showed a hands on approach, as imperfect as it may be, yields significantly better results than a hands off approach. I'm not seeing any evidence to the contrary here?
Hands-on was when Volker, the adult, took away the print, print, print "punch bowl" crushing 70's inflation. Then thereafter the teenagers took back control drink as much as you want.
I The teenagers seemed to have managed inflation pretty well in the 32 years since Volcker (Volker was U.S. Ambassador to NATO in the GW Bush administration) stepped down from the fed in 1989. But I'm confused, do you want to get rid of the Fed or the Fed has the ability to crush inflation when it pops up therefore one would think it's a good thing? Its very unclear as to what you're actually advocating on this thread, it seems all oppositional without any alternatives even proposed?
They've "managed" the inflation numbers pretty well (nice touch including an inflation chart from The Fed) - which is their specialty. Inflation itself is a whole other story. But yes to clear things up a bit I would like to get rid of The Fed which many are against. Of which I would think that includes 99.9% of Wall Street - as long as each succeeding Fed Head follows the Greenspan "Doctrine" - when all else fails ......... print. The Street loves Helicopter Money.