Myth of free markets
One of the most important and fundamental principles of economics is that “in a ‘free market’ current price of anything having an economic value is a function of demand and supply of such things at that particular point in time.” Of course there could be multiple factors that may impact the demand and supply of a thing; but usually nothing impacts the “price” directly other than the factors demand and supply. In a ‘controlled and/or manipulated market’ the prices of things are fixed by the controlling authorities (or forces); regardless of the demand and supply for such things. In such markets, usually demand and supply of things are controlled and/or manipulated; or demand and supply duly get adjusted to the fixed/manipulated prices. If we apply this core principle of economics to the world around us, we may discover that a significantly large part of global markets is presently either controlled or manipulated. The free market may only be prevalent in textbooks, policy document...