Every Central Bank is a Vampire: The Parasitic Nature of Monetary Policy
The metaphor of the vampire offers something of a poignancy with which to detail the central bank in modern economic discourse. In these institutions, founded with the express purpose of manipulating the economy, their powers are regularly deployed in ways that are directly parasitic.
The Lifeblood of the Economy
Central banks, like the Federal Reserve in America or like the European Central Bank, are designed to print money out of thin air and request tax from innocent people. However, a lot of people are very ignorant of this.
The only thing that central banks do is raise and lower interest rates. Doing so will encourage people to borrow money and spend it. Such a thing might sound great initially, since it would spur economic activities. However, the money one borrows was printed out of thin air.
Bailing out institutions creates vampires.
Central banking is parasitic in that purposeful failures are bailed out in financial crises. If the bank or corporation is deemed "too big to fail," the central bank steps in with capital infusions or guarantees. While this is believed to stabilize the immediate situation, it can foster a culture of dependency wherein institutions manage their risks prudently under an assumption of rescue.
The more these institutions become accustomed to lifelines from the outside, the more often they themselves become "vampires" that suck the lifeblood out of bailouts and monetary interventions paid for by taxpayers. This, in turn, has the potential to further distort economic competition when smaller firms, not enjoying such protection, may not survive, while power becomes concentrated in the largest, most vulnerable institutions.
Economic Consequences
The long-term consequences of such a vampiric relationship between central banks and financial institutions are grave. Prolonged distortion can result in:
- Inefficiency: Resources are ill-allocated as firms chase short-term profits and risk-taking at the expense of long-term prosperity.
- Inequality: Asset price bubbles favor the rich at the expense of middle and lower classes, who consequently become priced out of the market.
- Stagnation: The rate of economic growth can be sluggish when an economy is on addictive fiat money because innovation and entrepreneurial ventures are stifled.
A Call for Reform
Understanding that central banking is vampiric and that the consequences it has on the greater economy will only make the financial ecosystem even worse. Policymakers need to work out reforms that nurture resilience and freedom, not dependence.
Conclusion
While being built as an entity of trust, all their means and ways are sucking of the lifeblood by vampires and making other institutions vampires too. It becomes imperative that a more sustainable approach is called for where our economic systems thrive rather than collapse under the wheels of manipulative and deceitful intervention. We can only then expect the cycle of dependence to break and the evolution of a more resilient, sovereign, self-sustaining economy, with Bitcoin, the Freedom Money.