Mark Gilbert , Columnist

I Trashed the Economy When I Was Head of the Fed

Running a central bank is even harder than you think.

September 26, 2016 at 10:48 AM UTC

Mark Gilbert is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering asset management. A former London bureau chief for Bloomberg News, he is author of “Complicit: How Greed and Collusion Made the Credit Crisis Unstoppable.”

That shadowy figure might be me, doing a terrible job.
Photographer: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

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The San Francisco branch of the Federal Reserve has a game on its website that lets you play at being Chair of the Federal Reserve. After tinkering with it, I've come to some conclusions: Modeling the economy is a mug's game, short-term interest rates are a poor tool for steering the economy, and I should never be given the job of running a central bank.

The website sets out the objectives: