washington

"Radical truth-tellers" have been demonized and shunned by the establishment for centuries - much longer, in fact. Those of us who have always refused to settle for insincerity, falsehood, and duplicity in our personal, business, and civic relationships are usually considered "difficult."

And I am decidedly difficult.

For all of the 29 years I've spent trading and investing, I've watched governments and central bankers attempt to thwart the free market to serve their own ends - almost always at the grievous expense of regular investors - and then protest, often loudly on 500 channels, that they're doing nothing of the sort, that they're safeguarding or shepherding the markets somehow.

And through it all, one question has always persisted in my mind: "Are these people wrong because they're stupid? Or because they're lying."

I've come to conclude those two possibilities aren't mutually exclusive.

And that's meant suffering and economic misery for millions of Americans.