"Not Liberal or Conservative, Just Incoherent"

Greg Ip (who used to cover the Fed for the Wall Street Journal) has this excellent note out today in The Economist about the political problems surrounding government policy. Here's an excerpt from his piece:

IN ITS updated global forecast released this morning, the IMF warns against “premature and incoherent exit” from government support for the economy. “Incoherent” nicely describes the policy debate in Washington. Partisans have aimed their poison at the Federal Reserve and at the government's fiscal policy choices but what, exactly, do they want? The logical implications of their complaints are contradictory at best and dangerous at worst.

Start with the Fed. On the right, they’re angry about quantitative easing which they say is monetising deficits. On the left, they’re angry about lax regulation of banks. Both are furious at bail-outs of banks and AIG, and both think the Fed created a bubble with its low interest rates. So the Fed, presumably, should shrink its balance sheet, end its asset purchases and liquidity programmes, order banks to raise underwriting standards and raise rates to nip the next bubble in the bud. And this is going to bring unemployment down?

For the entire story:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2010/01/working_draft