Are Central Banks Losing Control?

Eight years after the crisis of 2008-09, central banks are still injecting $200 billion a month into the global financial system to keep it from imploding.
If you want a central banker to choke on his croissant, read him this quote from socio-historian Immanuel Wallerstein: “Countries (have lost the ability) to control what happens to them in the ongoing life of the modern world-system.” Stated another way, Wallerstein is asking: what do central banks no longer control? The quote is from Wallerstein’s recent meditation on China: China is Confident: How Realistic? “The question is how realistic is this self-assessment of China? There are two premises embedded in China’s self-confidence, whose validity need to be investigated. The first is that countries, or rather the governments of states, can actually control what is happening to them in the world-economy. The second is that countries can effectively contain popular discontent, whether by suppression or by limited concessions to demands. If this was ever even partially true in the modern world-system, these assertions have become very dubious in the structural crisis of the world capitalist system in which we find ourselves today.”

This post was published at Charles Hugh Smith on WEDNESDAY, MARCH 08, 2017.