When it has had opportunities, the Congress has never moved ahead on inflation targeting, possibly because of outright opposition, possibly because of a desire for neutral non-involvement. Nor have various recent Administrations expressed much interest, preferring to leave such matters in the hands of the Fed.
To complete his observation on the cupidity of the world, Adam Smith added this cool assessment of the prospects for regulation: “It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings (of people in a common trade) by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice.” Such, indeed, is the dilemma that we, regulators, face in searching to improve our systems of international, regional and national management of the financial industry and how best to regulate and supervise a deeply-flawed market which is falling into moral hazard.