Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears—and your denarii, while you’re at it, because the gods know you won’t get much for them these days! I, Marcus Tullius Cicero, have returned from the shades to cast a jaundiced eye on this modern calamity: interest rates climbing faster than a plebeian chasing a free loaf at the Circus Maximus. The culprits? Not merely the Fates, but the heavy hand of regulation, which, like a toga too starched, constricts until it chokes.

The Manhattan Institute, a forum of sages in this strange new Rome called New York, proclaims in a missive that “Financial Repression Won’t Make Interest Rates Lower.” Ha! They speak as if the Senate’s decrees could bend the iron laws of commerce. These modern magistrates, with their endless scrolls of rules, think they can tame the market’s wild stallion by chaining it to a post. Instead, they’ve spooked it into a gallop. When governments cap interest rates or force banks to clutch public debt like a miser hoarding sesterces, they distort the natural flow of capital. The market, ever wiser than the bureaucrat, responds by demanding higher returns elsewhere, driving rates up like a chariot in the final lap.

Consider the evidence: after the great financial tumult of 2008, central banks slashed rates to near zero, hoping to flood the Forum with cheap coin. But as Allison Schrager, a scribe of this Institute, notes, such “financial repression” only breeds pain. Regulations mandating banks hold government bonds or imposing capital controls create a false market, where savers earn less than inflation’s bite. The result? Investors flee to riskier ventures, pushing up yields on everything from mortgages to merchant loans. Higher debt, global trade fractures, and inflation’s specter further fuel this fire, ensuring rates stay lofty. Schrager warns that forcing rates down artificially is like commanding the Tiber not to flood—it’ll only burst its banks elsewhere.

Rome once thrived on free exchange, but today’s regulators, like overzealous augurs, meddle with omens they barely comprehend. High reserve requirements and macroprudential edicts crowd out private investment, starving the economy of vigor. Savers, punished by paltry returns, hoard or speculate, while borrowers—governments chief among them—gorge on cheap credit, bloating deficits. This isn’t governance; it’s a bacchanal of bad incentives! The market, like a wronged Vestal, demands justice through higher rates, as Schrager’s oracle foretells.

So, Romans, beware! Regulations meant to soothe only inflame. Let markets breathe, lest we all suffocate under debt’s weight. As I once argued in the Forum, liberty in commerce begets prosperity; control begets chaos. Cast off these shackles, or prepare to pay usurers’ rates until the Republic crumbles!