I have two monetary policy objectives. 1. Monetary objective: Get rich. 2. Policy objective: Stay rich. Therefore, I was interested to see what Section 2A had to say, which I quote below with my own comments in brackets. The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Open Market Committee shall maintain long run growth of the monetary and credit aggregates [ e.g. the O’Rourke checking account balance and Visa card limit ] commensurate with the [ my ] economy’s long run potential to increase produc- tion [ maybe someone will turn one of my books into a hit movie ], so as to promote effectively the goals of maximum em- ployment [ I could do without “maximum employment,” but I’ve got three kids to put through college so it’s not like I’ve got a choice ], stable prices [ especially for the shoes and clothes my wife and daughters shop for on the Internet ], and moderate long-term interest rates [ on the credit card debt to pay for those shoes and clothes ]. My kind of mandate! But there’s a problem with getting the United States Federal Reserve Bank to exercise its mandate on my individual behalf and help me reach my monetary policy objectives. I have to stand in line. The Federal Reserve is a large establishment for use by the general public – kind of like the men’s room at Penn Station in New York. And, kind of like the men’s room at Penn Station, all sorts of stuff goes on inside the
Fed that I don’t want anything to do with, such as mopping up government deficits and pissing on free enterprise. I prefer a private facility. In fact, I prefer a private everything – private railroad car, private jet, private tropical island. But these are expensive. According to what I’ve read about the history of central banking, a private Central Bank would seem have a zero-dollar purchase price and virtually no maintenance costs. (An extremely condensed history of central banking: In 1694, the English King William III was fighting the Nine Years’ War with France and ran out of money. He said, “Let’s have a Bank of England to borrow some from.” The Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, said, “Jolly good idea.” And Bob’s your uncle.) Most of what a Central Bank does is “open market operations.” These consist of buying bonds from a government. In the case of the O’Rourke Central Bank, I’m the government. I have any number of “PJ Treasuries,” “P-Bills,” “J-Notes,” etc., all neatly hand-lettered on my personalized stationary and available in denominations up to $1 godzillion with maturities ranging from “after I’m dead” to “when hell freezes over.” A Central Bank pays for bonds by issuing currency. I’ll use the color Xerox down at the copy store. It’s not counterfeiting when a Central Bank does it. Of course, my Central Bank will need to be a “politically independent” institution, the way the Federal Reserve is. The President of the United States can’t just tell the Chairman
6 | June 2017
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