Checking into the Marriott World Center in Orlando for a conference some years ago, I noticed the quiet, unassuming guy in front of me was having trouble with the front desk.  After displaying an unusual amount of patience, I finally stepped in front of him and said to the desk clerk “I’m sure if you called Mr. Marriott, he would be pleased to offer Dr. Blinder the Presidential Suite FREE.  Maybe, you should call Mr. Marriott NOW!”  Suddenly, the seas parted, and a reservation was discovered.

I chuckled about that incident this morning, while reading the excellent article by Alan Blinder on the Opinion Page of The Wall Street Journal   He was Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve System and is now one of America’s most respected economists.  I read anything he writes, and I’ll bet Mr. Marriott does too!

Today’s article argued that the Fed is not going to raise interest rates in the near future.  I love it when the “big cheese” economists agree with me!  The logic is the same:  (1) there is no inflation on the immediate horizon, and (2) the true employment picture is not as good as the unemployment rate suggests, primarily due to still-large number of the long-term structurally unemployed.  He does not argue that raising interest rates should be delayed in order to keep the dollar from getting even stronger, which hurts large multi-national companies.  (Obviously, I think that is a bigger deal than he does, but he is the “big cheese.”)

 He concludes the article with:  “To be sure, the Federal Reserve will not maintain near-zero interest rates and a $4.5 trillion balance sheet forever.  Monetary policy will eventually begin to normalize.  But not in June, and maybe not in September.  Timing, they say, is everything.  This is a time for patience.”

I wonder if he appreciates that I ran out of patience behind him at the Marriott front desk?