Must the Fed Fight Growth?

If all of your information about the economy came from the nightly news and the daily press, your thinking would probably go something like this: “A funny thing happened on the way to this economic boom. The economy gave a party and the Federal Reserve didn’t come. Just as U.S. business activity was poised to burst from under the lingering shadows of the 1990-91 recession, monetary policy took a decidedly restrictive turn this year. Apparently, central bankers have been willing to sacrifice economic expansion in order to tilt at inflation windmills existing only in their own hyperactive imaginations.”