Brad DeLong: What the hell is the Fed thinking?

Do conditions warrant anything more from the Fed’s efforts to tamp down on excess speculation besides a bit of jawboning?

An emerging consensus is looking at the recent economic data and scratching its head – what does the Fed see that has them even thinking about tapering?

Here’s wonky econoblogger Brad DeLong:

There are no signs in the pace of technological progress, in the level of investment, in the pace at which the American labor force educates itself, in measures of capacity utilization, in signs of upward wage pressure due to labor quality bottlenecks, or in surging commodity prices due to supply bottlenecks to suggest that the path of growth of U.S. sustainable potential GDP is materially lower today than was believed back in 2007.

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AND I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE FEDERAL RESERVE’S CURRENT THINKING AT ALL… (DeLong)