BEING AND TIME (AND CENTRAL BANKS)
People value present goods more highly than future goods. For instance, an apple available today is considered more valuable than the same apple available in, say, one month. This is expressive of time preference — which is an undeniable fact, a category of human action.
The sentence “Humans act” is a logically irrefutable truth. It cannot be denied without causing a logical contradiction. By saying “Humans can not act”, you act and thus contradict your very statement.
From the true insight that humans act we can deduce that human action takes place in time. There is no timeless human action. Were it otherwise, people’s goals would be instantaneously reached, and action would be impossible — but we cannot think that we cannot act.
The market interest rate is expressive of time preference, and as such, it is also a category of human action. If determined in an unhampered market, the (natural) market interest rate denotes the discount that future goods are subject to relative to present goods.
If one US-dollar available in a year is trading at, say, 0.95 US-dollar, it means that the market interest rate is 5.0% (the calculation is: [0.95 / 1 – 1]*100).
Should people start valuing present goods more highly than future goods — which is expressive of a rise in time preference —, the discount on future goods vis-à-vis present goods and thus the market interest rate go up.
If peoples’ time preference declines, the discount on future goods vis-à-vis present goods drops, and so does the market interest rate — meaning that people wish to save more and consume less out of their current income.
The interest rate and central banking
In an unhampered market, the market interest rate reflects peoples’ time preference. Nowadays, however, the market interest rate is no longer determined in an unhampered market. It is dictated by the central bank.
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