There is a charming, almost Victorian delusion currently being recirculated by the financial press—the notion that central banks are ‘independent.’ It’s a quaint little lie we tell children, right up there with the Tooth Fairy or the idea that your vote actually matters. The latest reports, whining about how ‘politics looms over central banks everywhere,’ are not a revelation; they are an admission of a long-standing bankruptcy of character within the global technocratic elite. We are meant to be shocked—shocked!—that politicians, those parasitic lifeforms whose only biological function is to secure re-election, might want to interfere with the delicate levers of interest rates.

Let’s look at the landscape of this unfolding farce. In the United States, we have a Federal Reserve that likes to pretend it operates in a vacuum, a vacuum presumably filled with the scent of mahogany and the sweat of terrified middle-class workers. Yet, the reality is a tawdry domestic drama. On the Right, you have a populist movement that views Jerome Powell as a Deep State saboteur because he won’t personally lower interest rates to zero to satisfy the ego of a real estate mogul. On the Left, you have the performative ‘equity’ crowd who believe the printing press can somehow solve systemic sociological failures without the inconvenient side effect of making a loaf of bread cost forty dollars. Both sides are united by a singular, breathtaking stupidity: the belief that you can defy the laws of mathematics if you scream at the bankers loud enough.

But this isn't just an American brand of idiocy; it is a global contagion. From the hallowed, sterile halls of the European Central Bank to the increasingly desperate offices in Tokyo and London, the mask is slipping. The technocrats—those self-appointed High Priests of the Ledger—are discovering that their ‘independence’ was merely a temporary luxury afforded to them during a period of low inflation. Now that the bill for decades of cheap money and fiscal incontinence has finally arrived, the politicians are doing what they do best: looking for a scapegoat. They need the banks to keep the cheap credit flowing to bribe the electorate, yet they simultaneously need someone to blame for the fact that the electorate’s savings are being incinerated by inflation. It is a masterclass in cowardice.

The media poses the question: 'Can the public stomach higher inflation?' This is the wrong question, phrased with the typical condescension of the ruling class. The 'public' has the collective memory of a fruit fly and the digestive tract of a goat; they will stomach whatever they are force-fed until the system finally collapses. The real question is whether the public has the cognitive capacity to realize they are being squeezed between two halves of the same corrupt pair of scissors. The politicians spend money they don’t have to buy votes they don't deserve, and the central banks facilitate the theft by devaluing the currency to pay for it. Then, when the inevitable price hikes hit, the politicians point their manicured fingers at the bankers, and the bankers point back at the ‘unprecedented global conditions.’ It is a circular firing squad where the only person who actually gets shot is the taxpayer.

We are witnessing the end of the technocratic dream—the idea that a few ‘smart’ people in suits could manage the global economy like a well-oiled machine, immune to the grubby hands of the voting masses. The truth is that there is no such thing as an apolitical economy. Every basis point hike is a political act; every round of quantitative easing is a gift to the asset-owning class at the expense of everyone else. The pretense of independence was simply a useful shield that allowed politicians to avoid taking responsibility for the inevitable consequences of their own profligacy. Now that the shield is cracked, the sheer nakedness of the arrangement is becoming visible to anyone who isn't blinded by partisan loyalty.

The Right will continue to bark about 'sound money' while simultaneously demanding the Fed juice the markets whenever their portfolios dip. The Left will continue to champion 'Modern Monetary Theory'—which is just a fancy way of saying 'magic money tree'—until the last vestiges of purchasing power are gone. And the central bankers, those brave guardians of the fiat-fueled fever dream, will eventually fold. They will fold because, at the end of the day, they are bureaucrats, and a bureaucrat’s primary instinct is survival. They would rather see the currency burn than lose their invitations to Davos. So, as the political pressure mounts and the 'independence' of these institutions dissolves like a sugar cube in a cup of lukewarm tea, don't act surprised. The game was always rigged; we’re just finally getting a good look at the dealers.