> As long as the central bank is full of thoughtful economists, I trust them to print money when they "feel like it" will be good for the economy.
Then your trust should be severely eroded by the events of the past decade or so in the US, since the Fed is full of "thoughtful economists" who utterly failed to predict the crash of 2008, even though their policies helped to cause it, and utterly failed to predict that printing massive amounts of money from 2009-2014 would not stimulate economic activity.
> and utterly failed to predict that printing massive amounts of money from 2009-2014 would not stimulate economic activity.
No, they didn't. Both the people at the Fed and mainstream economists outside have always pointed out that monetary stimulus is an extremely limited tool.
They may have failed to predict that Congress would be completely asleep at the wheel and neglect fiscal stimulus, but then even had they predicted that there is little they can do about it.
> Both the people at the Fed and mainstream economists outside have always pointed out that monetary stimulus is an extremely limited tool.
That's true, but it's also true that Bernanke and other Fed leaders were predicting that the economy was going to improve over the next few years even in 2008, when the crash was already starting. Even a limited tool can't be used properly if you don't have predictive ability.
A central bank can really only do two things: adjust the amount of money it prints, and adjust the amount of debt it buys. With only two variables to adjust, even thoughtful economists can make mistakes.
Then your trust should be severely eroded by the events of the past decade or so in the US, since the Fed is full of "thoughtful economists" who utterly failed to predict the crash of 2008, even though their policies helped to cause it, and utterly failed to predict that printing massive amounts of money from 2009-2014 would not stimulate economic activity.