When I Think Epic

When I think epic, I think of Star Wars but not the Strategic Defense Initiative, I think of Homer but not the Simpson, but I don't think of the Federal Reserve, the bank for banks that the United States uses today. Still, I will admit Roger Lowenstein's book on it, America's Bank: The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve (ISBN 9780143109846), doesn't bog us down in economics and it's a straight history that I liked reading, even if it took me two weeks. And that's not because I didn't like it, although my more conservative readers who think any centralized control is something we've been indoctrinated to accept and it's bad for personal liberty may think I'm insane for saying so.


Pretty much the Fed -- shorthand for the Federal Reserve -- controls the money supply and the interest rates of loans nationwide, and because a good deal of the negotiations done before preparing the bill to present to Congress for then-President Woodrow Wilson to sign creating the Fed was done out of public view because Mr. and Mrs. America would have likely seen it as a bankers' conspiracy (there were three Panics where there wasn't enough value to back up money in the years between Lincoln and Wilson alone; a centralized banking system embodied in the Fed was meant to prevent that in the future, and has largely done so), it still gets its fair and unfair share of criticism for that.


But few people seem to have problems with spending those Federal Reserve Notes they keep in their wallets or lack the initiative to accumulate as many of them as possible. Some lack the willingness to work for them, but I digress. Another of my weekend reads, one that took in accounts of both Americans and Japanese personnel just under a generation -- publication date 1962 -- after World War II ended, was Gary Gordon's The Rise and Fall of the Japanese Empire (MS4, the only identifier I saw since it's a pre-ISBN book). And even though Japan's interaction with the United States relatively speaking is only a blip in its historical eye, it's quite a blip.


I could go on about what I've read and what I'm reading now, but I have a family to get back to and relate a little bit about in the process. Martha my wife was out of town this weekend at a state bowling tournament in Jamestown about three hours away with the league she's on and she bowled Saturday as an individual. Team bowling was on Sunday and she opted to sit out of that because her knee's still acting up on her. Her own scores were not outstanding -- only once did she even make 100, I remember. Sarah, Jeffrey, and I stayed at home except when we weren't home; understand, Jeffrey and Martha are both more the homebodies than either Sarah or I are.


We got to go to a local flea market -- the kids hate this, but for me it's nostalgia. I made up for that by treating them and me to lunch out ... then ice cream out at Cold Stone, after I walked off lunch from McDonald's by making two circuits inside Dakota Square, and we played out in our backyard after getting home Saturday from Dakota Square and Sunday from Bethany Lutheran. Something else I'm particularly proud of, I donated two boxes of books I had in storage to a local book store! (For me this is a big deal. And I've still got more.) My goal is to not be as boring as Sarah said I was Saturday afternoon, and I don't believe I am.


We just can't and shouldn't splurge as much,


David