Paragraph of the Day: The Wall Street Journal on the Need to Choke off Inflation Despite the Begging
From a Saturday editorial at OpinionJournal.com (yeah, it’s still true even though it’s Thursday — zheesh):
As this week’s market action attests, the stock market doesn’t much like talk of higher rates. But the history of the 1970s shows that elevated inflation is far more damaging to equities prices than are rate hikes. The market and the economy will be better off if Mr. Bernanke and the Fed get back to neutral rates before inflationary expectations take root in the behavior and expectations of businesses and individuals. The new Fed chief this week put himself in a tough but necessary position. If he doesn’t want to go down in history as the next Arthur Burns, he’ll just have to tough out the screaming and stay the course.
