Charlie Munger, the under-heralded partner of the "Oracle of Omaha," Warren Buffett (perhaps comprising the finest investment team of the last half-century), believes that economics remains a rather insular field of practice. He seems to delight in accusing the economics profession of suffering from "Man with a Hammer Syndrome."
He recounts, "[T]o the man with only a hammer, every problem looks pretty much like a nail." 3 I suspect Munger feels similarly about the orthodoxy of monetary policy. Consistent with Munger's admonition, the Fed saw it necessary to expand our toolkit beyond the proverbial hammer of the policy rate in the last nine months.