THE Wall Street Journal's Jon Hilsenrath has written a nice piece on the Fed's internal battle over when and how to taper, and it's filled with one groan-inducing moment after another.

One concerns the revelation that three Fed governors, rather than the more vocal regional Fed presidents, led the push the begin winding down the Fed's programme of ongoing asset purchases. It comes as no surprise that Jeremy Stein, a member of the tightening troika, would be anxious to pare down purchases; since beginning his term last year he has spoken repeatedly about the threat of financial instability. But one can't help but notice that two of the three governors leading the charge to taper were appointed by Barack Obama. Who also left seats on the Board of Governors unfilled for an extended period of time despite the rickety state of the economy. And who has also completely misplayed the process of nominating a successor to Ben Bernanke as chair of the Board of Governors.

One is tempted to conclude that Mr Obama simply doesn't care much about monetary policy, and when he does turn his attention in that direction is mainly concerned with bubble prevention. This is an egregious error, especially given the state of fiscal policy over the past two years (and the cost of economic weakness to his popularity and agenda, for that matter). He obviously had his opponents on Capitol Hill to deal with; Senator Richard Shelby opposed economics Nobelist and Obama nominee Peter Diamond for the board on the grounds that the man wasn't qualified. Yet the administration's failure to take monetary policy seriously looks increasingly culpable in America's lousy recovery.

But back to our friends at the Fed. QE3, which consists of $40 billion in purchases of mortgage-backed securities per month and $45 billion in purchases of long-term Treasury securities per month, was launched in September of 2012. Purchases, the Fed said then, would continue until there was substantial improvement in labour markets and so long as price stability was not at risk. By early 2013 the unemployment rate had fallen a bit but remained well above the Fed's estimate of "normal". Inflation, meanwhile, was if anything too low. And what, at that moment, were our Fed governors worrying about?

By April more officials, including the governors, were getting worried about terms like "QE-ternity" and "QE-infinity" floating around financial markets, which suggested some investors thought the program was boundless, according to people familiar with Fed discussions. The Fed officials thought the job market had made enough progress to warrant discussing an exit. "We're in this box because we've got an open-ended program, and we didn't figure out how we were going to end it when we started," Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker , an opponent of the program, said in an interview.

Who cares about the economic fundamentals, the dual mandate, when Wall Street is coining terms? And while the language used by the Fed to describe the end to QE3 was not especially specific, it did have two key limiting variables: labour-market progress and price stability. What's more, the Fed had already laid out explicit thresholds for interest-rate increases, so it's not like markets were flying blind. Not remotely.

But officials very much wanted to communicate to markets that an exit was in the offing. Observe as monetary policy is made:

In a flurry of emails and phone calls before the gathering and at a dinner during the event, several officials zeroed in on an idea some people called "The Seven-Per-Cent Solution," a reference to a 1976 Sherlock Holmes film in which the fictional detective becomes addicted to cocaine. Several officials argued at the meeting that the Fed should signal bond buying would end when the jobless rate fell to near 7%, according to people familiar with the talks.

What an awful shame for the people of America that the Sherlock Holmes film wasn't called "The Full-Employment Solution".

What becomes clear from reading the piece is that many members of the Federal Open Market Committee wanted to communicate to markets that QE3 was going to end, not because conditions justified an end to QE but because the FOMC members didn't want markets to think it wouldn't end. But that's a pretty silly motivation; "Make sure traders don't use terms like QE-infinity" isn't one of the Fed's mandates. And so it is entirely unsurprising that markets interpreted the Fed's communications on tapering as signaling a more hawkish reaction function. FOMC members were shocked by the bearish market reaction all the same.

I simply don't understand how so many FOMC members have taken their eye off the ball. America is suffering from an ongoing economic disaster. A persistent demand shortfall and prolonged unemployment are costing the country trillions of dollars. When someone comes to the meeting complaining that traders think QE will go on indefinitely the majority of the FOMC should forcefully respond: so what? Let the traders talk about QE-infinity; let them shout it from the rooftops! When we're close to full employment and wage growth is back above the long-run trend there will be plenty of opportunity for the hawks to strut. Until then publicly obsessing about exit strategies is utter foolishness.