If you've been reading the Dispatch, you know we're living through a gigantic "global monetary experiment."

In short, global central banks cut interest rates to zero to fight the 2008 financial crisis. They've held interest rates near zero ever since.

These reckless "easy money" policies have made it extremely cheap to borrow money. Using borrowed money, people have bought trillions of dollars' worth of stocks, bonds, cars, commercial real estate projects, and single-family homes.

This has warped prices of nearly everything. U.S. stocks, commercial real estate, and art prices have all climbed to record highs.

•  In December, the Federal Reserve raised its key interest rate for the first time in years…

Many in the mainstream media called it the end of easy money. We pointed out at the time that interest rates were still extremely low. You can see in the chart below that the rate hike was tiny: