Flationation

One summer back in the late '80's I was with my childhood friend Todd at Bard College and we decided to go to this talk being given by Paul Volker.
The president of the college, Leon Botstein, was moderating the Q&A session. There were maybe 20 economics dudes in the room plus Todd and me.
Guess who wasn't allowed to ask a question? That's right. Me. Probably because Leon figured me and my bohemian friend were likely to scream obscenities at the man who'd been arguably the most powerful man in the world in the early 80's.
But we weren't. I just had one question. One question I wasn't allowed to ask the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve. And it was this:
"Why are you so opposed to inflation?"

It's a legitimate question. Inflation was all anybody talked about (this was while the Chicago school of bozo/voodoo economics was at its height.) During the 80's especially the orthodoxy in economics was vehemently opposed to high interest rates and also against public debt. But from a theoretical economic background it didn't make much sense.
And it still doesn't.
Funny thing is that now in 2015 and the Fed is starting to take heat from the same power players for not raising interest rates.
As a field, economics is more susceptible to fads than one might intuit. And they've lost the big picture since, what, Veblin? I don't even know. But it's weird to see the entire swoop of the Fed flip 180 degrees. I mean, they can only do one thing: control the supply of money. And the Randian nutcases are pretty much well-shamed from the almost-second-Great-Depression they caused.
I wonder what Volker would say now?