> If you were going to choose a moment when money became unstuck in the popular imagination — when it stopped being entirely serious and started being, at least

> If you were going to choose a moment when money became unstuck in the popular imagination — when it stopped being entirely serious and started being, at least a little, funny — you could do worse than an interview that then–Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke gave to 60 Minutes in 2009. Asked if the money the Fed was injecting into banks in the wake of the global financial crisis was “taxpayer money,” Bernanke shook his head and grinned sheepishly. “To lend to a bank,” he said, “we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed.” > given the global financial crisis and the Fed’s “using a computer to mark up the size of the account,” money had been reanimated from the suspension of settled policy consensus. Was this the moment when the author discovered fractional/no reserve banking? This and other things he says betray a lack of expertise about finance and economics (not to mention history). How is he writing a money column then? > Maybe the Marxists would finally figure out how to abolish the value form? (Don’t hold your breath.) ????