[mikeash]

Yeah, I don't get it either. I dragged each control to the maximum one by one, until I got to 2%. Then I clicked the button and won, even though I hadn't touched half of the controls yet. I assume there's supposed to be some underlying lesson in it....

[txru]

I'm guessing the 'lesson' from your iteration is that you increased prices most on a subset of goods- housing and utilities, health care, and financial services and insurance- while leaving the rest to track their industry.

The problem with that, and with health care especially, is that the 'native' price increase already far outstrips inflation. With that monetary policy, you've introduced an extra 5% tax on already quickly growing industry. So a family going through a health care crisis or crisis of changing insurance will be affected negatively, whereas a family only buying groceries and liquor will feel no undue changes.

So that's what I'm guessing the article is saying, where can/should/will the Fed attempt to affect American savings and purchases.

[dragonwriter]

Of course, the Fed doesn't make that kind of targeting decisions because monetary policy -- the only lever the Fed has -- doesn't work that way. Targeted effects are the domain of fiscal policy (where government choose to tax and spend), not monetary policy, and are the domain of Congress, not the Federal Reserve.