Outer space is indeed an appropriate setting to depict a system that can only exist with unlimited expansion and inexhaustible resources.
5
On a related note, the FED is doing what some of Trump's staff are doing, saving America and Trump from himself.
Various staff members have disobeyed Trump re orders to break the constitution to treasonous conduct with Russia.
The Fed is moderating the economy so at least for the time being it will not crash, which helps Trump.
Holy quantitative easing Batman, just when I'm teaching high school students about the Great Depression!
5
Are the comic books written at Trump's level?
It seems like they'd go right over his head.
1
The Federal Reserve Syatem and the national debt, simply explained:
A man staggers out of a bar drunk as he could be.
Five minutes later he returns and demands another drink.
The bartender gives it to him
4
As a business writer without an MBA, I discovered these comics years ago and learned basic economic facts from them. Glad to see they're being updated.
What a shame you can't order these comics on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
"[A Penny Saved, 2008] contained startling messages. “We’d like to send you to college,” a father tells his son at high school graduation. The mother continues, “But we can’t because we didn’t save enough.” Yipes. I promised Sam that we would save enough."
...continues in 2019 with "Sorry, Sam, that you had to borrow $45,000 to get that BA. Zero interest rates for the past ten years made my savings attemptscompletely inadequate."
What a sad story the Fed has written!
4
It’s telling these just so stories about the origins of money are set in outer space — for as the anthropological record clearly shows, barter did not precede money, and such stories have no earthly basis.
3
The Rule of 72 is really handy in the other direction, too. If your money doubled in 9 years, that means you're getting 8% interest. It sounds great to say you quadrupled your money in twenty years, but that means you doubled it in ten years, which is 7.2% per year.
1
The Federal Reserves has been printing money for over 100 years. So far its worked out (especially for the 1%). Hopefully this comic book reminds us that truth is stranger than fiction....
1
@wedge1 The Bureau of Engraving and Printing prints money.
1
@Conor Actually, they print currency. Most money isn't.
Most money is created through the process of bank lending.
The woman in the comic is being assisted by a green slug while she points to a graph indicating sluggishness.
5
Loose money is behind inflated house prices, but noone ever blames the Fed for homelessness.
1
How about a comic book that shows how artificially reduced interest rates naturally results in mis-priced risk and excessive debt build-up that naturally results in economies getting outawhack. These outawhack economies then can only be held up by further artificially reduced interest rates (and other gadgets like quantitative easing) which exacerbate gross distortions of a so-called free market and leashes capitalism from doing it's amazing job of cleaning out the dead wood.
Sound familiar? It's a really simple concept and perfect for a comic book that maybe the folks at the fed could read and understand.
8
What grades or ages are these aimed at?
I hope the comic book gets high visibility at the very top of the White House, where education should be most important. To that end, I would suggest that hundreds of copies be distributed within Fox and Friends and any program carrying the "Fox News" banner.
6
@Hector
Sorry but our president can't read....not even comic books.
2
The Federal Reserve is making comics and the State Department is making podcasts? Interestingly enough, I just saw this the other day: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/22-33/id1441480590! Wow, didn't realize that there are so many hipsters working for the federal government now a days.
1
One can't help suspecting that the Fed's latest effort in monetary policy education was inspired and aimed at citizen number 1. They may have taken a cue from former Sec. Pompeo, who in his former role as CIA director acknowledged that Trump was disinclined read daily intelligence briefings so they conveyed the essence of them with "great graphics".
Certainly hope this comic book finds its way into Trump's hands.
8
How about a comic on ecological (or steady state) economics ala Herman Daly in which the inhabitants of a planet called Earth recognize that its material resources and energy throughput (sunshine) are limited and that the notion of perpetual economic growth, as a perpetual motion machine, violates the immutable laws of thermodynamics?
This fundamental problem of contemporary economic theory in direct conflict with biophysical reality has been recognized by scientists such as Frederic Soddy as far back as the late 1920's before the Great Depression. But whose listening?
To a very large measure, this cognitive dissonance is the driver of our global ecological crisis.
Only when you start to have a conversation based in fundamental reality can you begin to make the claim that you are a "Master of the Universe".
14
In my time at the New York Fed I interacted with Ed. Very nice to see him get some publicity.
The old version of Once Upon a Dime was indeed a classic--full of dreadful jokes. Also, the hero was an artist named "Bloomfield," which was, I guess, a subtle and wonderful reference to that New Jersey town!
5
"Unlike earlier generations of Fed comics, this trip to outer space includes no visible math"
Well of course not. Adding (accurate) math would show that the dollar has lost 98% (not a misprint) of its value since the inception of the Fed in 1913.
Furthermore the minimum wage's value, or purchasing power, peaked in 1968 when it was a mere $1.25. 1968 was sandwiched between the removal of silver from coinage in 1965 and the 1971 "Nixon Shock" that delinked the dollar from gold, abandoning the Bretton Woods system.
Inflation is not the organic result of normal economic activity; rather it is a purposeful policy choice by the Fed, whose "expansionary" monetary policies put billions of newly-printed dollars in the hands of bankers, corporations and politicians. The result is not only inflation, but increasing wealth disparity and exploding deficits.
7
@Charles
Fiat currency, responsibly managed, allows for greater reactivity, innovation and flexibility in a national economy ... all traits vital to global competitiveness (Bretton Woods fell apart because European economies bailed out, in response to being throttled by dollar supremacy).
Yes, money as mere numbers on paper means more opportunities for corruption and exploitation ... but that's what progressive taxes are for, shoveling money back downhill into social services and essential consumerism (demand side economics).
Our TAX policy since CA Prop 13/Reagan is the travesty, not loose money.
9
@Len Arends
No, Bretton Woods fell apart because Lyndon Johnson insisted on simultaneously funding a warfare state (Vietnam) and a welfare state (Medicare). The European nations recognized that the Fed had succumbed to LBJ's (occasionally violent) shakedowns and had begun to print money that obviously could not be backed by gold. Heck, France sent a warship to collect its gold while BW was still in effect but on its last legs.
At present we have a situation where GDP growth is slower than the growth of debt. In other words the "growth" touted by Messrs. Obama and tRump is illusory - a dollar increase in the money supply injected by the Fed is not being met with a dollar's worth of real growth. As with every other fiat system in history - such a situation is unsustainable.
7
@Len Arends
I forgot to ask you - Do you know any working person who would prefer to be paid for their labor with a constantly-depreciating debt instrument rather than with an asset?
7