It’s funny how none of the presidential candidates want to talk about their plans to unwind the monetary stimulus or the long-term problems caused by negative or extremely low fed rates.

Much like engaging the choke on an engine to get more fuel to a cold engine, monetary stimulus is good for getting the economy going during the recession by putting more money into the economy. But if hold the choke in on an engine, while the engine warms, eventually the fuel mixture becomes too rich, and your engine will flood and stall. In economic terms, if you hold fed rates too low for too long, you will encourage risky speculation in the stock market, as people seek returns, and eventually cause inflation by making credit too easy and cheap to get.

Unfortunately, like a malfunctioning carburetor, as soon as the fed starts to reduce the monetary stimulus, the economy shows signs of weakness. It seems like the economy is running well on full choke right now, but as soon as you cut the choke, it threatens to stall. But you can’t run an engine on full choke forever — you are loosing a lot of long-term economic strength by forcing investors to make risky bets and pushing us towards further inflation. Like an engine that is choked, you are losing a lot of economic strength that would exist could the economy succeed without the choke on.

Fixing an engine with a malfunctioning carburetor is relatively simple. You probably have a plugged fuel line or poor quality fuel. Maybe the air and fuel mixture is off on the carburetor, and the engine is running too lean. The federal reserve can adjust the choke on the economy by tinkering with fed rates, but it can’t fix bigger structural problems in the economy.

Some of the economic change may be do to an economy whose population has gotten older, and doesn’t consume as many resources as it once did. The price of energy is another concern — while oil prices are low now, we know that they will not likely remain this low going forward. The low price of energy is leading to under-investment of energy resources needed in the future. Machines and automation are eliminating a lot of tasks. The incredible weight of expensive education systems and healthcare system (“maximum healthcare at all costs for all”) is another drag.