Kindle Notes & Highlights
Robert Triffin, an expert in international trade from Yale, advocated a criminal indictment of America. “A devaluation of the dollar … would be … a wanton crime against the people of this country, and against the friendly nations who have long accepted our financial leadership and placed their trust in the United States dollar.”
Volcker recalls: “It all sounded too easy. Push this button twice and out pops full employment. Equations do not work as well on people as they do on rockets. I remember sitting in class at Harvard listening to [the fiscal policy expert] Arthur Smithies say, ‘A little inflation is good for the economy.’ And all I can remember after that was a word flashing in my brain like a yellow caution sign: ‘Bullshit.’ I’m not sure exactly where that came from … but it’s a thought that never left me.”
U.S. citizens complained about the dictatorial decree and squirreled away their gold in safe-deposit boxes, while litigating (unsuccessfully) that Congress had abrogated their inalienable rights.15 Mary Meeker, a recently unemployed fifty-one-year-old single woman, sent a latter dated April 30, 1933, to the New York Times, summarizing the complaint: I was frugal in the use of my earnings, and what I managed to save … amounted to about $31,000.00 … A few months ago I became very much disturbed over the financial situation in this country and decided to withdraw my money from savings banks,
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