A US recession seems inevitable now. Unfortunately for those of us who would be negatively affected by this development, US policy-makers have, in their wisdom, stripped themselves of the means to attenuate its effects.

Monetary policy: The Fed didn’t stop raising interest rates in August because it thought that inflation was under control; it did so because it saw a slowdown on the way. The Fed won’t react until the recession is severe enough to bring core inflation below 2%.

Fiscal policy: The government deficit is something like 3% of GDP, and the debt/GDP ratio has been drifting north for a while now. That doesn’t leave a lot of room for a counter-cyclical fiscal policy.

Yikes.