The assumption that free market reforms have failed to resurrect the economies of developing countries has become orthodoxy in some circles. Critics contend that market approaches are incompatible with the realities in developing countries.

In the early decades of the Cold War, the Lutheran theologian Reinhold Niebuhr attracted a considerable following among American intellectuals who influenced foreign policy. People such as the historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., who wanted to found a group called Atheists for Niebuhr, maintained that Niebuhr provided a new, realistic basis for America’s battle against Soviet communism that avoided the discredited idealistic moralism of Woodrow Wilson.

My previous article demonstrated how the free market solves a boom-bust crisis and is the only solution, its effectiveness depending upon the magnitude of the crisis and, more importantly, how much the government intervenes in response. The bigger the problem created by the Fed, the greater the crisis and the more government intervenes, and the slower the economy recovers.

It can be argued that the world has reached the sorry state it’s in today largely because academics, politicians, “distinguished experts,” and “recognized authorities” did not have the humility to admit their own mistakes or to at least recognize the limits of their knowledge. Of course, this is far from a new affliction in societies and political systems. Hubris was among the most terrible sins that the ancient Greeks warned against, and there have been too many narcissists in positions of power to count since the emergence of the first organized societies.

On Wednesday, November 2, 2022, the Fed raised the target for the policy rate by 0.75 percent, to 4.00 percent, for the fourth time in a row. Fed chairman Jerome Powell hinted that the policy rate target is likely to be lifted further ahead. For most economists and commentators, the Fed’s monetary policy is the heart of the interest rate determination process.

The Federal Reserve is on pace to lose somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 billion over the next year to eighteen months, as the yield on its portfolio of Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities is now being surpassed by the interest it pays banks to hold reserves in their accounts at the Federal Reserve (this practice began in response to the 2007–08 financial crisis as an enhanced means of controlling liquidity).