Central bankers want you to think they have all the answers. They talk about their policy “tool kits” as if they can just reach in and find the proper solution for any possible economic scenario.

But if you peer behind the curtain, it becomes apparent they may not really know what they’re doing after all. In fact, with a recession looming on the horizon, there are some signs of desperation among economic central planners.

The conventional Keynesian wisdom that dominates today holds that central banks need to lower interest rates when the economy slumps in order to stimulate borrowing and spending. But rates in the US hover just barely above zero. In the Eurozone and Japan, they languish in negative territory. So, what is a central banker to do when the next recession hits?

As Jim Grant put it in an interview on CNBC’s Closing bell last week, we may be in for some really crazy monetary policy.

Peter Schiff has been saying since the December rate hike that the Federal Reserve will have to reverse course, drop rates back to zero, and possibly even take them into negative territory. But the European Central Bank has held rates below zero from months with little notable effect. What happens if negative rates don’t work? What other gadgets to the central bankers have in their tool kits?

There is always the possibility of another round of quantitative easing, something Peter says is on the horizon. But some pundits have suggested an even more radical policy – permanent quantitative easing. In essence, just turn on the printing press, and never turn it off.

Financial Times chief economics commentator Martin Wolf floated this idea in a recent column. Wolf is clearly a true believer in Keynesian conventional wisdom, so the fact that he’s talking about permanent QE is telling. He’s certainly not alone in pondering this option.

First, Wolf runs through some other options the Fed and other central banks can consider. None of them seem particularly good for the average person.