You know it bothers me that after about eight odd years of having the middle lower classes suffer through stagnating or declining standards of living for the past eight odd years that now we must suggest that a recession is the medicine the economy needs. I fear that what follows the recession may not be much of an improvement. Perhaps there is no alternative, perhaps the people are getting what they desreve for electing a nincompoop. Yet for us to say that we must tighten the money supply to control inflation, knowing that we must wait for the global economy to cool sufficiently to actually dampen demand for commodities enough to affect inflation seems really kind of cruel. How far does the global economy need to slow to effect our domestic inflation? By tightening the money supply/strengthening the dollar we not only reduce pressures on oil prices we dampen a lot of other domestic economic activity.

Perhaps there is no alternative.

Or maybe we could focus on what is causing the inflation. Food and energy primarily. And through policy address those, hoping to allow the U.S. economy to retain more viatilty, instead of allowing to become the whipping boy of the global economy. Now we could for instance exploit oil reserves in protected areas, but if we did we should cap production in those areas, exploit just enough to relieve the difference between excess and shortage, not to pump as much as possible. We could also subsidize upgrading numerous consumption venues with more efficient means, lighting, heating, refrigeration, etc. The big problem here is that we have committed to a market approach to weaning ourselves from oil. While we have done work toward making alternatives competitive with oil, the cheaper oil is the less likely alternatives are to be made available. Unless mandated by policy, this can be accomplished as long as people are willing to accept and "intrusive" government. Policy decisions can also be enacted to rolled back as the case may be to relieve some of the price pressures on food.

Gotta run, sorry if I am dropping the thought a bit early, but I am sure you get the jist of the idea.