Shall We Dance?

For oh, ho, ho, Who's got the last laugh -

Hee, hee, hee, Let's have the last laugh -

Ha, ha, ha, Who's got the last laugh now?

 

We couldn't help but think of Ira Gershwin's lyric, when we caught Brad DeLong;

Now on one level this will simply bonkers. Does anyone think that if the government has a target for freight-car loadings or kilowatt-hours and takes steps to hit that target that it is pursuing a “neutral” and “non-interventionist” policy? No. So why is a government that has a target for the quantity of liquidity services provided pursuing a “neutral” and “non-interventionist” policy? On another level it is very clever indeed, as one should expect because Milton Friedman was very clever. It disarms the lunatic right by saying: “You have your neutral monetary policy, I have mine, mine works, and yours doesn’t.”

waltzing in the arms of John Tamny to the same tune;

...the Comical Absurdity of 'Market Monetarism'

which Tamny says is actually central economic planning;

'Market monetarists' believe the Fed can achieve the alleged nirvana that is planned GDP growth and national income through money supply targets set for the central bank by members of the right who've caught the central planning bug.

We're pretty sure neither of them will be amused.