Monetary policy was briefly in the news last week when Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke announced that the much anticipated tapering of the Fed’s $85 billion monthly purchase of Treasuries and Mortgage Backed Securities would, in fact, not take place. For those who aren’t enthralled by monetary policy talk, in layman’s terms the US central bank decided that its policy of counterfeiting – know as Quantitative Easing – at the rate of $1 trillion per year is such a fabulous idea that it couldn’t let the party to stop.
Of course, modern central bankers Ben Bernanke’s and Alan Greenspan’s ilk didn’t invent the art of defrauding people through monetary debasement, they’re just better at it than folks were in the old days. Martin Luther in his commentary on Romans 2:2,3 had this to say about the counterfeiters of his time,
Today we may apply the Apostle’s words first to those (rulers) who without cogent cause inflict exorbitant taxes upon the people, or by changing and devaluating the currency, rob them, while at the same time they accuse their subjects of being greedy and avaricious.
Something tells me Brother Martin wouldn’t have received a warm welcome from the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee or, for that matter, the faculty of most any modern economics department.
Lux Lucet 