Once upon a dime
THE TIP was there all the time, if we knew where to look for it. I found it in the stony fortress of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which, improbably enough, pub- lishes a children's comic. Called Once Upon a Dime, its pictures tell the story of Mazu- ma, a tropical island whose inhabitants (like Nat the Net and Captain Sharky) trade fish and coconuts for flowers and spears, need something better than barter, invent money, and go on to invent banks and, finally, a central bank. Then they all sing its song, to the tune of On the Banks of the Wabash Far Away:
Oh when prices climb up higher than the palm-trees And the dollar buys a little less each day, Then it's time the Federal Reserve made lending harder For the banks of Mazuma far away!
So it did, this month, and chopped the legs off the world's markets. This song — it has two more verses — must surely find its place in the concert that the Bank of England has commissioned for its three hundredth birth- day. It would go well with the Bank's own choice, which is Belshazzar's Feast.
Previous page
