"Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!"
Sir Walter Scott, Marmion
“The arrogance and brutality of empire are not repealed when they temporarily get deployed in a just cause.”
Michael Kazin
When governments intervene in markets, other than occasionally and transparently in currency and interest rate markets in pursuit of clear policy, I do not see how they can expect investors to maintain the confidence in their policies and actions.
It is understandable that such actions in commodity markets may be occasionally necessary to help to manage the impact of some exogenous crisis. This is the right and proper role of a government in responding to the needs of their people in the face of natural disasters, wars, and other exceptional events.
But when interventions become a routine and necessary component of central bank policy, there should be no question that the economy is being maintained in an unstable and untenable equilibrium, and that forces of imbalance are being allowed to accumulate that will result eventually in a market dislocation and a further crisis, that often will be worse.
When the temporary becomes permanent, and the discretionary becomes required, then the winds of great change will begin to blow, and what has been hidden, however long, will be revealed.
