No more than short-run political opportunism

From Letter: Tweaks to inflation target now would smack of opportunism from the Financial Times.  

Inflation targets are not supposed to be mere fair weather friends. They serve at all times to reduce arbitrary and undemocratic redistributions of income and wealth and stealthy forms of “hidden” taxation, all of which monarchs, despots, autocrats and, yes, democratically elected governments have, via the printing press, exploited. While there’s nothing wrong with debating the correct target “number”, choosing to raise targets when inflation has persistently surprised on the upside smacks of no more than short-run political opportunism — precisely what central bank independence was supposed to avoid.

Indeed.  Central Bank machinations sound like technocratic processes but they always come down to the favoring and disfavoring of groups of citizens.  Changing the goal posts is always a signal that some group is about to be disfavored to the benefit of another.  The cardinal virtue is predictability rather than theoretic perfection.