by Keith Weiner, April 1 2024

They filed into the small room. After an ordeal, they were sent to the basement of the John Law Building. They had asked for the big auditorium at the center of the architectural wonder known as The Tulip, where they could be seated on stage in front of an audience of a thousand students and faculty. But their topic was money, so there was no audience at all.

They were an eclectic lot. Maynard led their little group, held even by his opponents to be the most clever among them. His snide little smirk was often taken as a sign that he understood more than anyone else.

Each of the four walls had a poster on it. Maynard sat down under a picture of a bearded old man, who could have been Karl Marx or any other hirsute 19^th century thinker with more money than class. At the bottom of the picture, it said “K.M.”

Janet, a dour little old lady, stumped over to her chair. The picture behind her looked like it might be P.T. Barnum. She carried a card, with a picture of Maynard on it.

Milty was even shorter than Janet, and much balder too. Whereas she was dour, he was avuncular. He played at being the foe of Maynard. He sat under a picture of Niccolo Machiavelli.

The last of their odd little group was a tallish man named Jay. He believed that the interest rate is proportional to the height of the person in charge of the Fed. This theory made no less sense than the theory that presidents elected in years ending in zero will be killed by an ancient curse. Thus, it was not without believers. He sat under a picture of a chameleon, which was not to the confused with the affable green lizard mascot of a certain insurance company.

Maynard began, “The surest way to overthrow the capitalist…”

Milty interrupted. “If you want jobs, people must be free to choose!”

Janet had a surprisingly low voice, and a New York accent didn’t make it any more melodious. “Jobs is easy, you just print money.”

“Sometimes you have to print money, if wages are too high, but not always.” Milty meant it as a retort, but when it came out it didn’t sound all that different from Janet’s formulation. This, however, did not mitigate his extreme self-confidence.

She responded, “Workers want to be paid more, but employers can’t afford it, so you print more. True, this does cause inflation, which robs them of their wages, but a clever Fed Chair can get inside their decision loop and keep those suckers in the dark!” Suddenly, it was obvious why she chose the picture of Barnum.

“You have to keep the debauchery steady, at 3% per year.”

Maynard smiled, an evil little grin. He looked like the Emperor from Star Wars. “Yes, yes…” he gloated, “feel the currency debauchery, I have foreseen it.”

Just then, Jay decided to put in his two cents. This wasn’t worth much, thanks to the policies ideas of Mayard and Milty implemented for decades, but it was all he had at the moment. “Why don’t we find common ground?”

Janet said “jobs.”

Milty said “jobs and prosperity.”

Maynard muttered something that sounded like “these fools definitely aren’t among the one in a million who understand.”

Milty said “capitalism.”

Maynard couldn’t help himself laughing, “who else will sell us the ropes by which we hang them?”

There was a sudden, awkward silence, like when a deer sees a wolf and freezes.

Jay tried to recover the fumble, “we all agree on jobs, right?”

When he saw a few nods, he went on. “And when there aren’t enough jobs, the Fed must print, right?”

When no one disagreed he went on, “maybe the theory is all complimicated with lots of calculusage and shit, but as Janet said it reduces to something simple. CTRL-P.” The other two nodded, but not Emperor Maynard Palpatine. Jay went on, “We all want what’s good for people, jobs, GDP growth, strong exports, which means we must have currency debauchery.”

An unholy light seemed to come to Maynard’s eyes for a moment, at the word debauchery, but then it was gone. Milty suddenly recalled those old rumors of his pederasty.

“Yes, yes…” Maynard said again, like the Emperor watching real hate aroused in young Skywalker for the first time. “GDP growth, yes yes… debauching the currency”

“Will you stop using the word ‘debauchery’? We are only talking about an increase in its quantity, to reduce its value. If wages are sticky and won’t go down when we need them to, we simply reduce the value of the currency. It’s really no different than making everyone move his clock backwards in October!”

Maynard only issued a dry cackle.

Janet said, “I proved in my paper with Akerlof, you need to print to give employers more money to pay more to more workers.”

Jay tried to wrap it up on a positive note, as that would be good for the stock market. “So we agree on debauch—umm, debasing—the money, in order to boost GDP and jobs. This was easier than I thought, with a real ideologue among us—Milty!”

“Print!” said Janet.

“Adjust the master clock,” demurred Milty.

“…impoverishes many…” muttered Maynard. “…actually enriches a few…” he breathed into his moustache.

“Well, whether you want to print to debauch the many and enrich the few, whether you want it to boost GDP and stocks, or whether your motive is to create jobs, the solution is print money without end!”

“Printing money without end, without end,” they all intoned in unison.

It seemed the portraits of Marx, Barnum, and Machiavelli smiled faintly. The picture of the green gecko remained inscrutable.