I'm not a fan of the Fed, but they've basically got one tool at their disposal - interest rates - and a mandate to, roughly, keep the wheels on the economy*. I

I'm not a fan of the Fed, but they've basically got one tool at their disposal - interest rates - and a mandate to, roughly, keep the wheels on the economy*. I think that since at least 2008 that's been the wrong tool for the job, but all the other tools are held by Congress, which basically refused to do anything useful for the economy out of principle. It's absolutely the case that lowering interest rates wasn't the best policy for the last decade+, and it's also the case that the Fed was the only entity actually trying to do anything, so interest rates is what we got. * The Fed's got a mandate for price stability and employment, but broadly speaking the social expectation is that they're keeping the economy afloat, and I expect that's how they view themselves as well. I'm not arguing they're doing a good job or that that's what they should do, but I think that's the broadly-held view of their role.