Central bankers, and many others, appear to want some inflation. And yes, when inflation runs away the central bankers can step and kill it. Collateral damage, however, can be pretty bad, and folks around here are likely casualties.Wouldn't deflationary pressures from China and elsewhere have made the deflationary pressures of the recent credit collapse even harder to control?
A complex understanding of the economy may be needed to achieve some kind of optimal monetary policy, but controling runaway inflation really only requires a willingness to raise rates to a sufficiently high level. I don't see the difficulty.
I think one of the differences between today and decades past is not so much a more sophisticated understanding of the economy, but a belief among central bankers that low inflation is an end in and of itself. In the early 70's, many economists questioned whether the Fed should even concern itself with inflation, preferring to focus on the rate of unemployment instead. Things today could not be more different.
I think there are only two levels of inflation: not enough or too much. We never have the one we want and overshoot when we reach for the one we don't have.