Sept/Oct/Nov 2009
Money for Nothing
How the Fed, the investment elite, and mortgage scammers brought down the US economy.
Seth Hettena
ALCHEMISTS IN THE MIDDLE AGES sought in vain to unlock the secret that would turn lead into gold, but their modern counterparts have introduced some important modifications— chiefly by turning gold into paper. The Federal Reserve, the gatekeeper of the American financial system, keeps tons of gold bullion in its subterranean vaults, and it creates dollars out of thin air to control the flow of money through the world's biggest economy. Under Ben Bernanke, the Fed has evolved into what David Wessel calls the fourth branch of government. And in recent months its powers have expanded dramatically, in order to combat the most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression. Wessel's In Fed We Trust is the best book yet written on the present crisis, and a measured and thoughtful look at the massive experiment the
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