Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets

Nothing Fails Like Success

Greenspan was a success, but a successful central banker can be truly dangerous, for his primary mission is to control the value of the currency. A casual reading of that sentence should not leave the unwary reader with a misapprehension. We repeat—a central banker must control the currency; but he mustn't protect it. That is to say, his primary mission is to control the rate of its destruction.

For, modern central banking, like bank robbing, is a nefarious métier. But while Bonnie and Clyde's crime was obvious and deplorable, a central banker is often confused with an honest man. He wears a respectable suit. He carries no handgun. He could be mistaken for a university professor or Supreme Court justice.

But in fact his trade is deception. He must deceive the world into believing that the nation's currency is stable … all the while steadily undermining it. For the central banker is fundamentally a world improver hell‐bent on making the world a better place, or at least on making it look better. And his tool is money.

What does almost everyone want? More money. And wouldn't the world be a better place if people had more money? Yes, most people think so. But a banker, even a central banker, cannot really give people more money—not more real money. If it were not so, all the world would already be rich. Richest of all in the year 2006 would be the Zimbabweans, whose central bank endeavored to give them more money at a breathtaking rate—over 1,000 percent. ...