There is still a lot learning to do about the real meaning of “getting out of the way of markets”
Sir Martin Wolf writes “Gone, too, must be the assumption that governments should merely get out of the way of markets”, “A weakened Britain enters the post post-Thatcher era”, December 4.
Absolutely not! When we see governments ordering the banks to hold significant amounts of “high quality” government bonds and allowing them a zero percent capital requirements when lending to the government, as compared to the 8 percent required when lending to an ordinary citizen, we cannot but wish that the governments and some financial commentators someday learn “what getting out of the way of markets” really means.
And also, when Wolf suggests that we should not suppress markets but instead support them and guide them, I can´t keep but wonder on what Margaret Thatcher would have had to say about the guiding part.
Absolutely not! When we see governments ordering the banks to hold significant amounts of “high quality” government bonds and allowing them a zero percent capital requirements when lending to the government, as compared to the 8 percent required when lending to an ordinary citizen, we cannot but wish that the governments and some financial commentators someday learn “what getting out of the way of markets” really means.
And also, when Wolf suggests that we should not suppress markets but instead support them and guide them, I can´t keep but wonder on what Margaret Thatcher would have had to say about the guiding part.
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