>It seems to me that the widely accepted practice of market stimulation by interest rate intervention has the cost of destroying price discovery.

The idea that low interest rates stimulate anything is a myth. If you believe in the idea that the financial markets should obey the real world, rather than the opposite (which is assumed by practically all economics), then interest rates must go down all the way to 0% as the market reaches saturation.

> Also, that it is a primary cause of wealth inequality.

The idea that one should raise interest rates in a stagnant economy will cause nothing but a redistribution from the working class to the owning class. Who do you think is working for those interest payments? The rich? Do they even pay enough taxes to service government debt? Do they pay the interest payments for the financing that companies need to operate? Do they pay the interest on consumer loans of the poor?

>These relationships seem to me actually obvious: push down DCF denominators and valuations go up, inefficient businesses stay in business and employ people digging holes.

>Meanwhile those who hold wealth see its value increase disproportionate to 'actual' worth and common people who hold little or none can afford less and less of it.

It's exactly backwards. Getting paid interest in a saturated market creates excess liquidity which floods the market and drives yields down everywhere. People start speculating because they have nothing better to do.

>It seems like a pretty direct policy of 'rich get richer, poor get poorer'.

Well, that's what interest does. If you have too much money you get more. http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~roehrigw/kennedy/english/chap1...

>Worse yet, as I look at the world around me, it all seems to support my hypothesis. Tesla, spacs, NFTs, housing, blackrock & vanguard & gates buying land, etc. I could go on and on with examples.

Land speculation is an extremely old problem that has always existed. https://bibliotek1.dk/english/history/centuries-of-experienc...

>But the thing is, I got shitty grades in my college econ courses. It's laughable to me that all the highly educated people at central banks somehow haven't thought of this but I have. I'm being serious, I'm kind of a lazy idiot. By any reasonable measure, I expect that I'm wrong.

You're wrong and the central bankers are wrong as well but they have no other option which is why they do what they do.
When you take money out of the economy by saving it, the money in circulation goes down. The savers think they should be paid interest to circulate the money. The thing is, savers can just sit on their money which means they can charge an interest rate that is not set by supply and demand. Central bankers think the missing money has to be replenished. The thing about interest is that the amount of missing money in the economy grows exponentially.

The obvious answer is to just tax the people who are sitting on cash. If they are lucky enough to find a borrower that wants to pay them 0% interest, then they get to keep their money. That is a real free market.

Saving in cash is akin to blocking a road and demanding interest is like charging a toll for anyone who dares to take that road. The central bankers build a new road next to yours and then you block it too, leading to endless road construction. Fine the person blocking the road and you won't need to do much else.

>Could you point me in the direction of some primary sources that address the relationship between interest rate intervention and price discovery? I've been told to pick up an undergrad macro text, but those all just seem to say "low rates = easier to get loans = mo' jobz" without any rigor.

I would urge to watch this video series instead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI2Zs3QfzEI&list=PL65E9E0867...

>Open market ops and other interventions are so common and accepted, the only other people I see complaining are precious metals schizos. Surely there's a theoretical foundation for the policy/practice.

Have fun treating the symptoms and then noticing, that your solution either delayed the inevitable or made things worse to the point that people start a violent revolution and then reintroduce the same system so your grandchildren can experience a revolution as well.

Here are other excerpts from that book: http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~roehrigw/kennedy/english/