Inflation Fears Hover on the Horizon Like So Many Massing War Ships From a Crappy Transformers Movie…

If your full faith and credit in Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve has not yet hit the Jell-o phase, consider this ringing declaration courtesy of Bloomberg.com:

Federal Reserve officials will probably seek today to reassure investors they can keep short- term interest rates at a record low without igniting inflation.

The Fed's Open Market Committee, concluding a two-day meeting, may stress that increasing slack in the economy will contain consumer prices into next year, analysts said. Policy makers also will likely discuss how to avoid a jump in longer- term Treasury yields once they fulfill their commitment to buy $300 billion in Treasuries as soon as August.

Please tell me that the "slack" referenced above is an economic term and not the linchpin concept in the Church of the SubGenius. It's getting harder to tell. More here.

Last year, Reason.tv talked with the Washington Post's Robert Samuelson, whose recent book The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath, is an indispensable guide not only to post-war America but to the self-delusions that regularly overtake economists and public policy pros. Watch below or go here for downloadable versions and more links, etc.