by David Stockman
LewRockwell.com
There is surely no development more inimical to main street prosperity and democratic governance than the lock, stock and barrel capture by Wall Street of the nation’s central bank. That baleful condition enables and sustains the two very worst forces in American society today—the spenders and warmongers of Washington and the Wall Street speculators, who otherwise claim to be traders and asset managers.
The not-so-secret sauce of the Fed’s rogue monetary regime, of course, is artificial, ultra-cheap interest rates, which have been sustained over extended periods of time. In fact, the Fed’s key policy instrument—the Federal funds rate—has stood at negative levels in inflation-adjusted terms for more than 93% of the time since March 2008. And even the current positive rates barely peeking above the zero bound per the chart below are still far, far below the healthier levels recorded from 1984 through the year 2000.