Laws are enacted, bureaus are created, budgets are enlarged, new taxes are imposed and inflation eventually rears its head.
The controls imposed on inflation, public debt and public deficit, together with exchange rate stability and convergence of interest rates, all contributed to reducing the rate of interest paid by the treasury.
Similarly, the chancellor imposed an inflation-linked 11p increase on a packet of 20 cigarettes.
Last week the London mayor, Boris Johnson, imposed above-inflation fare increases, blaming the move on an £84m shortfall left by his predecessor, Ken Livingstone.
Since then, Mr Mkapa has freed farm prices and foreign exchange, spurring an impressive growth in agriculture.He has also imposed fiscal discipline; inflation has fallen from 28% in 1995 to below 5%.
That was the largest three-month drop since the second quarter of 1980, a contraction that was in some sense artificial: the Carter administration, seeking to suffocate inflation, imposed limits on bank borrowing.
At which Biffen drily observed: "If the flagship is blocking the fleet, sink the flagship!" But attempts to correct the inflation imposed new pains which were followed by a grinding recession and only cured at a price found intolerable by the electorate in 1997.
It is time for Europe to break free of the constraints imposed by the German inflation of the 1920's.
A decade ago, Argentina decided to tie its peso to the dollar at a value of one to one, a decision that at first dramatically reduced inflation and imposed fiscal discipline, but eventually led to the current crisis.
The unknown factor: how consumers will react to higher prices, which companies imposed this year to offset inflation.
