“Economics is not an exact science. It is a combination of art and scientific elements,” said Paul Samuelson, the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Economics. But in recent decades, central banks seem to have forgotten this lesson, Radu Krachun writes in his personal blog

The ban on the central bank buying its own country’s debt before the 2008 crisis was written in red on the first page of any monetary policy alphabet. The motivation was related to the inflationary consequences of such an approach, which involved printing money. But the drug of printing money, which initially limited the pain of the economic crisis, used stubbornly for a decade, ended in addiction. Both governments and financial markets have become prisoners of the free money that central banks print to finance national budget deficits and stimulate the economy.

Read the full article on the Radu Krachun blog