David Malpass, president of Encima Global, an economic research and consulting firm, is none too impressed with the Federal Reserve's massive easing program and President Barack Obama's economic policy.

"The Fed’s progressive critics are calling for the Fed to keep current policies in place. That doesn’t make sense," he writes in Forbes.

Central bank officials say they plan to begin raising interest rates before year-end.

"The Fed’s seven-year zero-rate policy was supposed to be stimulative, yet income and wealth conditions for most Americans have gotten worse, while a narrow group in the upper crust has gotten much richer," Malpass says.

The economy has grown 2.1 percent annualized since the Great Recession ended in June 2009.
"President Obama’s 'new norm' economy–slow, government-controlled growth dominated by the Fed’s giant system of allocating credit to the rich–should be a major focus of the economic and political debate," Malpass states.

In addition to the Fed's mistakes, "regulatory policy is limiting leverage, risk-taking and total credit," he says.

Former Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher thinks it's a good idea for the Fed to begin tightening soon.

"The upcoming Fed meetings present a timely opportunity to start slowing down the engines, however slightly, so as to maintain the confidence of markets, businesses and consumers alike," he writes in the Financial Times.

The Fed's favored inflation gauge shows price increases averaged only 1.65 percent annually over the past 10 years. But a better measure puts it at 1.83 percent, Fisher says. The Fed's inflation target is 2 percent.

"There is another reason not to be too concerned about the inflation rate falling below its intermediate-term target," Fisher says. "History tells us that wage growth initially picks up slowly when unemployment starts to fall but, as it approaches more fulsome levels, wage rises accelerate."

The unemployment rate hit a seven-year low of 5.1 percent in August. Wages gained 2.2 percent in the last 12 months.

The Fed has kept short-term interest rates at a record low near zero since December 2008.

"Moving toward liftoff from the zero bound" would help the economy, Fisher says.

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