The U.S. Federal Reserve Board, for all its power, faces tough new limits on its ability to keep the economy out of a recession. . . On Wednesday, the central bank, led by Ben Bernanke, found itself facing signs of a problem the United States has not seen in decades: stagflation, the mix of slumping economic growth, sharp spikes in prices for oil and food and a rising pace of overall inflation. (International Herald Tribune, Thursday)
Or maybe they're the same limits the Fed has always faced: central planning doesn't work.
FEE Timely Classic
The Impossible Task of the Fed by Ernest G. Ross