KINDER'S COMMENTARY: BUSINESS IS SETTING THE REAL AGENDA
The world's financial markets have become the watchdogs over domestic economic, political, social and legal policies. They are the judge and jury. Instead of governments dictating to markets, international markets oversee governmental policies. International investors require confidence in the continued existence of transparent societies, with sound fiscal and monetary policies, and providing a dependable framework of political and legal stability. Countries will not stay ahead in the competitive race for international capital unless confidence and stability prevail. -- William C. Freund, chief economist emeritus of the New York Stock Exchange, on the watchdog role financial markets increasingly are playing, writing in the Durell Journal of Money and Banking, Summer 1995.