Akkam’s Razor

This cannot turn out well.  Via Economist View (emphasis mine):

I want to question one thing in these remarks. There are considerable lags between the time a policy is put into place and the time the policy takes effect, e.g. as long as a year and a half before the peak impact of the policy is felt on GDP and the effects of policy shocks can persit for as long as three years. Recessions can occur much faster than this and the idea that the Fed can always respond in time to catch any downward movement in activity fails to recognize the length of these lags and the uncertainty we have about them (see Jim Hamilton at econbrowser for more on this). I find the attitude that ‘The economy doesn’t typically move so rapidly that it would get away from us,” surprising from a Fed official.