Final Word from Tuesday, August 16, 2011
The West's future dictators will most likely be politicians or generals, but their forwardguard are "independent" central bankers. These bankers are doing nearly asmuch as politicians to drive us to the edge and beyond. It's not just their adherenceto cheap-money policies, which are encouraging people to buy housing and otherthings they can't afford, or the way they are helping to push up asset prices to thepoint of popping. No, these central bankers are also now priming the pump evenmore by printing money to buy government debt. Jan Mládek of ČSSD noted withtrepidation in HN that democratically elected governments are starting to lose controlof what is happening, as central bankers take over. Things are calm on Na Příkopěfor now, but one must wonder whether next time, unlike in the monetary reformof 1953, it won't be the central bankers telling the government what to do.
Glossary of difficult words
adherence to - faithful attachment or devotion to something;
cheap-money policies - low interest rates;
rising asset prices - low interest rates and a policy of plentiful money cause prices of stocks and other assets to rise;
to prime the pump - to stimulate something by supplying it with money;
trepidation - a feeling of fear or agitation.
monetary reform of 1953 - the distribution of new banknotes (printed in the USSR) at a lower value.