well start with those side effects: inflation is kept in check by beating back workers whenever they get to powerful. Then take into account how lousy growth has been since the 1970s when they started doing that.
If we could have had depressions but more amortized growth, and not "jobless recoveries" and anemic amortized growth, would that have been worse or better?
That's why they changed the inflation target. If your goal is 2% then you have to raise rates before you even hit 2% nipping full employment in the bud. If you target an average rate of 2% then having a year with 5% and four with less than 2% lets you balance things out.
Edit:
I read the article and it basically boils down to rich people benefiting from low inflation because it doesn't erode their deposits and makes stocks/housing go up without increasing wages. It's pretty much true but it is also so obvious to be boring. Money from the past is power from the past.
Maintaining the value of money earned 60 years ago is the same as maintaining power obtained 60 years ago. Holding onto money doesn't help workers be more productive so if they spent their 60 year old money it would get eroded by inflation. You therefore need to add some slack in the labor supply that is not used up by anyone, meaning nobody is going to miss that labor if it is paid by 60 year old dollars that would otherwise result in inflation if there were full employment.
well start with those side effects: inflation is kept in check by beating back workers whenever they get to powerful. Then take into account how lousy growth has been since the 1970s when they started doing that.
If we could have had depressions but more amortized growth, and not "jobless recoveries" and anemic amortized growth, would that have been worse or better?