I am no fan of the current Hungarian government, which has many Illiberal tendencies. But today in defiance of considerable international pressure, its allies in parliament usefully reversed a disastrous, long-term trend in favor of central bank independence. Hopefully this destroys the taboo on discussing the proper role of central bank technocrats in modern politics. While shielding central banks from political meddling and giving them clear inflation-fighting mandates may have seemed like a bright idea at the time, there have been lots of terrible side-effects. Central Banks have helped run the financial system into the ground and along the way it has become clear that they have been clearly 'captured' (even cognitively) by the financial sector they are supposed to regulate.
Central banks have used their considerable regulatory power to shield the financial sector from the costs of its mistakes, and in doing so, more recently, many central banks have promoted deeply regressive policies to pay for the financial sector mess. Of course, this is not to suggests that political control over the printing press or access to cheap finance for well connected cronies are not without well-known problems (or that elected politicians can't be deeply regressive). But in some places, voters can at least throw the politicians out of power, if necessary. At the very least, we should not underestimate the ritual significance of this kind of house-cleaning.
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