One irony here is that paranoia around central banking is usually directed, not outward by central bankers, but inward towards the institutions themselves, which some eccentric observers often accuse of being in the thrall of one cabal or another.
And Hungary's central bank under the Orban dispensation has a track record of unusual initiatives, from spending $108 million on fine art to allocating more than $700 million of its profits to fund the teaching of schools different to what it calls "outdated neoliberal" economics.
The Center Has Not Held
Hungary attracted much criticism in recent years for the politicization of its central bank, a factor cited by credit ratings agencies when they took its debt to "junk" level ratings in 2011.
Funnily enough, five years down the road, policies of financial repression intended to force banks to hold Hungarian debt have worked well enough that now there is a reasonable likelihood that the country could be upgraded soon.
There have even been arguments that Hungarian assets are now seen as a relative "safe-haven" in comparison to some other European debt issuers.
Turkey, another country on the periphery of the euro, has had its own experience with paranoia in matters of monetary policy.
Though the central bank itself, while responding to political pressure amid a plunging lira by keeping interest rates lower than where they otherwise might be, has not espoused odd views, it has been subject to them courtesy of President Tayyip Erdogan, who has posited the existence of "an interest rate lobby" and labeled supporters of high rates "traitors."
The real lesson from Hungary, one which hopefully won't be read elsewhere, is that political and economic dislocation make room for ideas and tactics which, for good and ill, are in opposition to what we all thought the rules of the game were.
All of the verities of globalization, and the Davos view of affairs, are under attack.