As I saw it, the Fed was stuck between a rock and a hard place. They either had to a) print money to relieve debt problems and keep the economy going (which had already pushed inflation to 10 percent in 1981 and was causing people to dump bonds and buy inflation-hedged assets), or b) break the back of inflation by becoming bone-crushingly tight (which would break the back of debtors because debt was at the highest levels since the Great Depression).
