Yanis Varoufakis

I hate to say that.

I really loathe to say that.

But I think that Trump is right.

the rate of interest is not going, if it's going to stay at such high levels, it's not going to do anything in order to reduce the cost of living, to reduce inflation.

Inflation is not controlled by interest rates anymore.

We have to understand that now we have what I call in a recent book of mine entitled Technofederalism.

Sorry for plugging it, but it's important in order to make the point that

If you go to groceries around the United States, not just Walmart or Amazon, but bricks and mortar groceries, many of them, thousands of them are being controlled in terms of their pricing.

by Instacart, which is a techno-feudal company that effectively uses very sophisticated algorithmic systems for ensuring that you cannot compare prices between different stores.

You cannot even compare the prices you pay with the prices that others pay.

It's intense first-degree price discrimination, which is algorithmic.

And we know that Instacart, on its own, along with Amazon.com, have contributed to an increase in the value of groceries by 30%.

Now, there's nothing that the Federal Reserve can do that.

Even if they put up interest rates to 10%, that kind of technological inflation, inflation created by what I call technofederalism, is not going to go away.

So...

I fear, I hate saying that, that on the question of interest rates, I think that Trump is right.

But there's a bigger question, the question about the so-called hypothesis or aspiration for central bank independence.

The idea that the elected government shouldn't run monetary policy, monetary policy should be handed over to experts.

who, on behalf of the whole of society, make dispassionate apolitical decisions.

Well, you know, that's rubbish.