I don't share your sentiment that the Fed has done a good job. They've done, a job. How do we know the economy wouldn't have recovered on its own faster without the Fed talking it up or down? Or how do we know the mess they had to get out of, wasn't made artificially worse because of their existence? How do we know resources wouldn't have been allocated more effectively, earlier? Or the market would have perhaps cut the fat sooner? We can never know.

But I'm willing to bet their existence made the allocation sub-optimal, even if that means it was less painful in the short-term.

When the central planners control big enough carrots and sticks to make the winners and losers, the game becomes more about guessing which winner and loser will be picked. And when.

What really grinds my gears, is that people can instantly "predict" that a third world country attempting blatant economic manipulation by controlling prices or setting quotas on some random physical good is going to lead to instability and bad outcomes...but when the Fed attempts to control the price of money, everybody has full faith that their central planning is going to work great going forward.

RE: human resilience - the older I get, the more it does seem to be a good bet, to bet with the optimists. To the optimist go the spoils.