A closer look
Modern central banks confidently jack up interest rates to crush inflation, assuming that making money expensive will force prices down. But 19th-century economist Thomas Tooke realized they had the whole dynamic backward. He pointed out the brutally obvious fact that merchants rely on credit to stock their inventories. When interest rates rise, the cost of holding goods skyrockets, and those ruthless businessmen don't just eat the loss—they pass every single cent onto the consumer. Tooke’s intensely cynical observation proves that the very medicine the government uses to cure high prices is often the exact toxin causing your grocery bill to spike in the first place.
