Foolish interference

The perverse thing in this economic crisis is the way the BoE says it will not try to prevent asset price bubbles but it will do all in its power to stop those bubbles popping and so prevent a healthy and necessary re-balancing of the economy.

This is asymmetrical nonsense - either you don't interfere either way (the free market preference) or you interfere both ways (the socialist preference)- doing half and half leads to a fundamental mispricing of risk and consequently a gross misallocation of resources.

Interest rates should be left to float free - like currencies and asset prices. Controlling the price of money assumes that a select few know better than the market - that is arrogant and dangerous nonsense.

An illiberal "do anything and whatever it takes" policy - is an assault on all our freedoms, not least the freedom to try and to fail and to learn from our mistakes.

Father Ignatius Brown