, Columnist
The Fed Risks Future Pain If It Fails to Curb Inflation Today
Want to learn from the mistakes of the 1970s? Then take action against rising prices now and reduce the greater torment that will come from waiting.
No time for milquetoasts.
Photographer: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images
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A consensus has formed that the Federal Reserve waited too long to start tightening money. Ben Bernanke, the former Fed chairman, has said so. Janet Yellen, another former chairman who now serves as Treasury secretary, has implicitly agreed, saying that she, like many other observers, underestimated how high inflation would run for how long.
But Fed watchers are still disagreeing about another question: Is the central bank tightening too much and too fast now?