The misbehaviour of markets

Capitalist barons: Internet giants achieve winner-take-all dominance or market share by giving ‘free goods’, such as convenient search engines and free Internet memory for users. In reality, the Internet user has willingly traded his private information and market behaviour records in exchange to the Internet platform for use to its advantage. – AFP

BEFORE the Global Financial Crisis of 2007, the market was God and the master who made the belief possible, former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, walked on water.

After the crisis shook belief in financial markets, the new high priests are the European Central Bank president Mario Draghi and Bank of Japan governor Haruhiko Kuroda. They are trying to convince markets that central banks can lift economies from deflation, if not with negative interest rates, but also helicopter money.