The subprime crisis is not a failure of market

April 29, 2008

I’m getting tired of hearing people like George Soros happily declare subprime proves “free market fundamentalism” will ruin the financial sector. How anybody can describe a system in which the price of money is fixed by a few secretive men in a marble palace “free” or “market” is beyond me. This crisis is not a failure of market, it’s a failure of government.

The Soviet Union collapsed, the world already had this debate and the conclusion is settled, central planning doesn’t work. Get over it. It doesn’t work in steel, it doesn’t work in agriculture, it doesn’t work in energy, and it definitely doesn’t work in money. Giving any central bank the ability to manipulate the supply of money is giving them the ability to regulate half the value of every transaction in the economy.

If I could describe the exact opposite of free market, a central bank would be play a central role. Legendary investor Jim Rogers believes the Fed has sowed the seeds of its own destruction with a careless bailout of Wall Street, let’s hope he’s right.