HOLY MONETARY POLICY! : FED'S COMIC BOOK EXPLAINS ECONOMICS.Byline: David E. Kalish Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. Inflation goes up! Ooofff! Interest rates rise! Bammm! The white-shirt economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York The Bank of New York, abbrieviated to BNY, was a global financial services company that existed until its merger with the Mellon Financial Corporation on July 2, 2007.[1] The bank now continues under the new name of The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation. have put out a comic book comic book Bound collection of comic strips, usually in chronological sequence, typically telling a single story or a series of different stories. The first true comic books were marketed in 1933 as giveaway advertising premiums. to explain monetary policy to America's high school and college students. In panel after panel, the new Fed booklet shows square-jawed policy makers struggling alongside ordinary Americans through inflation and other economic woes. One panel shows a woman reading a book titled ``Interesting Concepts About Economics.'' With self-deprecating humor humor, according to ancient theory, any of four bodily fluids that determined man's health and temperament. Hippocrates postulated that an imbalance among the humors (blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile) resulted in pain and disease, and that good health was , the book she's reading is touted as a ``New Expanded Two-Page Edition.'' Central bankers don't expect teen-agers to be talking about ``banking system liquidity'' in the same breath as Spiderman and Wonderwoman, but they do hope to teach kids some fairly adult concepts. ``Economics, as we know, is not the most popular subject. It has a reputation as being the dismal science Dismal Science A slang term used to describe the discipline of economics. It was given this description by Thomas Carlyle, who was inspired to coin the phrase by T. R. Malthus's gloomy prediction that population would always grow faster than food, dooming mankind to unending ,'' said comic book author Ed Steinberg, an economics professor who also works in the New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Fed's communications department. ``We're trying to make the material more palatable pal·at·a·ble adj. 1. Acceptable to the taste; sufficiently agreeable in flavor to be eaten. 2. Acceptable or agreeable to the mind or sensibilities: a palatable solution to the problem. .'' The Federal Reserve Bank adjusts interest rates and regulates reserves in the banking system to try to control inflation and make sure banks have enough money to loan consumers and businesses. In explaining this, the central bankers poke fun at their image as a secretive, monolithic organization of regulators and economists. To illustrate that central bank governors serve 14-year terms, a Fed banker ages from one panel to another. He goes bald, his office plants grow, and the photos on his desk portray tots who grow into teens. The only things that don't change are his striped tie, dark suit and thin-rimmed glasses. ``I don't think the kids really get the humor. I get the humor. I'm also teaching in an inner-city high school,'' said Nina Wohl, who has used Fed booklets for her economics classes on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The Fed has distributed comic-book style booklets on everything from banks to saving money since the 1950s. But the latest addition, coming to classes this fall, tackles ``The Story of Monetary Policy.'' Oooofff! Whap! Pow! CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: The comic ``The Story of Monetary Policy'' is coming to classes. Associated Press |
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