I dusted off this piece I did a year ago on chrislbecker.com where I assessed the SARB’s performance in accordance with its own prescribed legislative mandate.
The results are dismal to say the least. I conclude,
Not only has the Reserve Bank failed at each one of its core missions, but also its core mission has become increasingly vague and poorly defined. This makes sense, since the SARB is trying to settle on a definition that it cannot be judged to have failed on. The trend is away from sound money toward monetary chaos, a task at which the SARB will very likely succeed!
Take a look at the slide from soundness to chaos:
1921: Restore the Gold Standard at a fixed parity – institute sound money
1989: Monetary Stability – protect the value of money
1993: Protect Internal and External value of the currency – protect the relative value of money
1996: Protect the value of the currency – vague commitment to protect relative value of the money
2000: Achieve Financial Stability – no commitment to protect the value of money
2002: Inflation target 3-6% – officially sanctioning the destruction of the value of money.
Read the full post here.
