Permanent Distortion: https://nomiprins.com/permanent-disto...

Adam Smith is to economics what Isaac Newton is to physics. In Wealth of Nations, Smith explained the calamity of interfering with supply and demand: “What is the species of domestic industry which his capital can employ, and of which the produce is likely to be of the greatest value, every individual…in his local situation, judge much better than any statesman of lawgiver can do for him…I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good…The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals…assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had the folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.”

Smith’s wisdom is cast aside by politicians colluding with moneyed interests to enact protectionist legislation. Employing high-powered lawyers and lobbyists, private groups enrich themselves at the expense of ordinary citizens whose livelihoods are earned in open markets. The systematic weaponizing of government to protect the rich from the gales of competition is an offshoot of the iron law of the species that the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

In her 2018 salon, Dr. Nomi Prins explained how the arch-protectionist Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act promulgated 400 studies and 243 implementing rules to crush banking competition. In her new book Permanent Distortion, Nomi details the spendthrift monetary policy of the Federal Reserve and other central banks that underwrite Wall Street's stock market gains. The longstanding parting from reality was exacerbated by the self-inflicted financial crisis of 2008 and accelerated with the $5 trillion ballooning of the FED's balance sheet during the pandemic. "Quantitative Easing" injected staggering amounts of fabricated money into the economy through too-big-to-fail banks. What began as a short-term dependency became a habit, then a compulsion, and finally an addiction. As President Ronald Reagan observed, “Nothing lasts longer than a temporary government program.”