And that appears to have been the desired practice of senior central bankers of the time, “mystique”. The object of their communication was to create such uncertainty as to ensure that their decisions would be treated with the kind of awe that attends the devotions of the converted.
Mr Volcker, it is said, described the central bankers of the Bretton Woods system as “high priests, or perhaps stateless princes”, the process by which they made monetary policy decision resembling the elusive mysteries of papal successions. That perhaps explains the sea change that has occurred in thinking about communication by central banks.