If our economic future is hot, it is going to be anything but funny. A hot scenario will be one hallmarked by significant inflation--something we haven't experienced in the US since the late 1970s.
If we see run-away inflation, then the US dollar isn't going to be worth as much.
In order to counteract these two-fold problems of inflation and a very weak dollar, the Feds will have to raise interest rates, just like Paul Volcker did in the early 1980s to help us through that difficult time.
Volcker's Fed is widely credited with ending the United States' stagflation crisis of the 1970s. Inflation, which peaked at 13.5% in 1981, was successfully lowered to 3.2% by 1983.
The federal funds rate, which had averaged 11.2% in 1979, was raised by Volcker to a peak of 20% in June 1981.
These changes in policy contributed to the significant recession the U.S. economy experienced in the early 1980s, which included the highest unemployment levels since the Great Depression, even higher than today.
Volcker's Fed elicited the strongest political attacks and most widespread protests in the history of the Federal Reserve (unlike any protests experienced since 1922), due to the effects of the high interest rates on the construction and farming sectors, culminating in indebted farmers driving their tractors into Washington for Tractorcade in 1979.
You can imagine the turmoil if this happens again. It will also lead to renewed problems in the housing market--and a stock market that will take it on the chin!
We already witnessed a bit of this last year with the tea party patriots rallies across the nation. Indeed, the election in Massachusetts today appears in part spurred on by voters concerns about run-away government in that state, and in Washington.
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