"Peter, I have always accepted, and asserted many time, that the Fed has signifcant control over interest rates. What I have cast doubt on, equally many times, is that the Fed has all sorts of other channels for influencing the economy that do not work through the interest rate channel." I missed this earlier -- it answers my question re whether your point in this thread is merely PR advise. You're pro lowering rates and keeping them low. Thanks,

BTW but you don't believe the FED keeping rates low has been a particularly helpful idea, right? It's all fiscal for you, I think? Sorry if you already addressed this in this thread; it's getting kinda long. There's just some irony here in that I have to wonder if this is just instrumental PR kind of advice, or you wanting us to be more up front in claiming victory on something that didn't accomplish what we thought it would, that you actually predicted wouldn't work all along.

Thank you as well. I think the answer is yes. I agree. But, I think you and Peter might be talking past each other. I understood you to be saying that Beckworth was denying the FED's causal power altogether, but "the Great Recession and the prolonged slump that followed caused interest rates to be depressed and the Fed did its best to keep short-term interest rate near this low market-clearing level," doesn't seem to deny that potent role. The FED is working to keep rates low, so there it is, right there, in writing. I guess the fact that he calls it the "market clearing" level doesn't muddy it up too much, from where I sit. Seems like an admission that, left as it was, the market couldn't sustain the market-clearing level. Not sure what I'm missing, unless you disagree that the Great Recession was the original (for lack of a better term) "organic" cause for low rates (using that word only nominally, to distinguish from the idea that the FED is the one that lowered rates to begin with).

It's not that hard to trace back the disagreement, Dan and Peter: "What I wish George Will, Bill Gross, and other free market advocates would consider is the possibility that the Fed itself is not the source of the low rates, but simply is a follower of where market forces have pushed interest rates. That is, the Great Recession and the prolonged slump that followed caused interest rates to be depressed and the Fed did its best to keep short-term interest rate near this low market-clearing level." It's an ambiguous statement, that can be read in context, applying a modest principle of charity to eliminate absurd interpretations. Beckworth certainly said in the second sentence what Peter is interpreting him to say, and he certainly said in the first sentence what Dan interpreted him to say. But, the second sentence seems like a simple clarification of the first. The great recession caused the low rates, the Fed worked to keep them there because that's where the market clears. I don't see any statement denying the FED's role in making rates lower than they would have been otherwise.