We know from centuries of evidence in countless economies, from ancient Rome to today's Zimbabwe, that running the printing press to pay off today's bills leads to much worse problems later on. The inflation that results from the flood of money into the economy turns out to be far worse than the fiscal pain those countries hoped to avoid...
Inflation is a sinister beast that, if uncaged, devours savings, erodes consumers' purchasing power, decimates returns on capital, undermines the reliability of financial accounting, distracts the attention of corporate management, undercuts employment growth and real wages, and debases the currency.
--Richard Fisher, Dallas Fed Reserve President and CEO
http://www.dallasfed.org/news/speeches/fisher/2008/fs080528.cfm
The above link contains the full text of the speech at the Commonwealth Club I attended last week. It doesn't include the Q&A session, but is still worth a look-see.
"And if an epitaph be my story, I'd have a short one ready for my own: I had a lover's quarrel with the world." -- Robert Frost
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