On the art of breaking rules...............

 

Commenting on the behavior of the Bank of England in the crisis of 1825, Thomas Joplin said, "There are times when rules and precedents cannot be broken; others, when they cannot be adhered to with safety."  Of course.  But breaking the rule establishes a precedent and a new rule, which should be adhered to or broken as occasion demands.  In these circumstances, intervention is an art, not a science.  General rules that the state should always intervene or that is should never intervene are both wrong, . . .

-Charles P. Kindleberger, Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises