For decades, policymakers have operated under a remarkably simple assumption: recessions are bad, preventing them is good.When markets seize up, central banks cut rates.When credit contracts, they provide liquidity.When unemployment rises, governments spend.And when sufficiently important institutions get into trouble, policymakers find increasingly creative ways to keep the trouble contained.Each intervention makes sense in isolation. Nobody wants businesses to fail, workers to lose jobs, or retirement accounts to collapse.But there's a problem with treating every downturn as something to be prevented.Recessions have an economic function.The economy needs to discover what doesn't workDuring an expansion, cheap money can blur the line between a productive investment and one that survives only because financing remains abundant.As asset prices climb and refinancing stays easy, projects that might fail under more demanding conditions can appear healthy for years.As long as money remains plentiful, separating genuine wealth creation from speculation becomes difficult.A downturn strips away that protection.Businesses built around optimistic assumptions suddenly have to prove that they can survive weaker demand and more expensive credit, while borrowers can no longer refinance their way around unsustainable debts.As those failures are recognized, assets can be repriced and resources redirected toward more productive uses.This process is painful precisely because it involves recognizing losses that already exist.Rather than make those losses disappear, preventing that recognition can allow them to grow.Every rescue changes the next boomThat creates an uncomfortable possibility.What if decades of increasingly aggressive intervention haven't made the economy safer?