It is liberating that Erik Thedéen tells it like it is: economic forecasts that extend beyond next Monday are not something to be taken very seriously.

Especially not the Riksbank's.

Their "hedgehog" is a standing joke.

The chart, which resembles a hedgehog, shows how they repeatedly guessed that they would raise the rate, but then cut it anyway.

And most recently, how they said inflation would be "transient" and were late to the ball on raising interest rates.

Instead, shocks are raised when inflation has already run its course.

The risk is that you will then be forced to pull the emergency brake and quickly lower again, if the economy slows down too much when the effects of already implemented interest rate increases take effect with a delay.

Look up

The Riksbank has acted like a practice driver on the slippery slope: too high a speed into the slippery curve, you are forced to turn the steering wheel too hard in one direction, and then forced to turn it back in a panic, so as not to end up in the ditch.

Now if they don't have ABS brakes to connect to the monetary policy control system, there is another good trick to learn from driving school: look up and scan the traffic environment ahead!

The new Riksbank Act also gives a mandate to look more broadly at the economy, not to be so obsessed with the 2 percent target for inflation.

When the Riksbank did an economic experiment and lowered interest rates to minus one, it was because they were afraid of deflation, falling prices.

It can certainly be destructive in a scenario where other ingredients also point towards disaster, a la the depression of the 1930s.

But it wasn't like that now.

Prices fell largely because imports became cheaper and your smart phone doubled in five years without increasing in price.

Something that is actually good.

All deflation does not have to be bad deflation.

Now inflation is feared instead.

And uses the blunt weapon of the key interest rate to smash parts of the economy so that consumption will decrease to the point that inflation will follow.

But that's the fault of the energy prices, isn't the interest rate the cause?

No.

But if it has started to spread in the economy, as it has now, there is a risk that expectations of continued inflation will bite into our minds, and that is what the Riksbank is really afraid of.

What happens inside our heads, the psychology of inflation, is the real specter of inflation.

Rhetoric affects

Just like with the psychologist, you try to talk your way out of the problems.

More than what the interest rate can achieve in practice, Thedéen's rhetoric can be useful because it affects our perception of the future.

If we believe that he will succeed in fighting inflation with the interest rate, our inflation expectations are softened and then the actual need to raise the interest rate also decreases.

In his capacity as Riksbank governor, he can talk down inflation.

The trick is to deceive us that the Riksbank will be tough as hell, and raise the interest rate more and keep it high longer than they actually expect.

Poker face Erik Thedéen has started the game well.

The interest rate path which suggests that they will keep the interest rate high for several years after inflation is estimated to have fallen back to 2 percent, they cannot believe it themselves.

Erik Thedéen is now too honest for his own good.

He wouldn't have said that about not believing their forecasts.

Because that is what is required for it to be possible to talk down inflation.

So let's forget about that moment of unexpectedly straight answers we got in Sunday evening's Agenda.

Have faith in the Riksbank's curves for a while longer, so he won't have to raise interest rates as much as he tries to make us believe he will.