Money in the 1920s and 1930s Nowhere Is Monetary Ignorance More
Apparent than in an Analysis of These Decades APRIL 01, 1999 by
RICHARD H. TIMBERLAKE Richard Timberlake is a professor of
economics retired from the University of Georgia, and author of
Monetary Policy in the United States, An Intellectual and
Institutional History (University of Chicago Press, 1993). This
article is the first in a series. One of the most enduring and
troublesome mysteries in economics is money: how it is created,
what sorts of institutions initiate the process, what kinds of
mystique and priestcraft central bankers use in managing
monetary systems, and what rules, laws, or customs limit their
actions. Perhaps the common ignorance about money is harmless.
After all, the millions of people who use this money drive
sophisticated automobiles and manipulate complex computers
without knowing much about the technical properties of either.
As long as cars, computers, and money behave themselves, can we
perhaps ignore them? The answer i