Otmar Issing on consensus views (fg)

Quote from Otmar Issing's speech 'Lessons for Monetary Policy. What should be Consensus' at IMF.

My question is—always, and not only from hindsight–whether this [Sticking to Inflation Targeting and to the benign neglect view of dealing with asset prices] is all. Because if this is your position, that monetary policy should deal with asset prices only on the way down, it is a totally asymmetric approach. It implies that as long as asset prices go up, the central bank is saying, it's not our business. If asset prices collapse after a bubble bursts, then the central banks have to come to the rescue. They are the savior. I think this asymmetric approach implies the risk of a series of ever-increasing bubbles, because you never correct the causes that have led to the bubble.