Few people were more enthusiastic or better prepared to take on the task of running the Federal Reserve than Meyer, a complete contrast to the second-rate figures who had so far inhabited the Board. A successful financier, he had accumulated a large fortune by the age of thirty-five, had run not one but two government-backed financial institutions, and unlike most bankers, believed very strongly in activist government policy and a more expansionary Fed policy to reverse the slide in the economy and halt deflation.
