From The Founder's Desk
columnist: Walt Thiessen

Topic: Monetary Policy
The Federal Reserve Simplified

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I am proposing that we all collaborate to create a free, online book that explains in simple terminology how the Federal Reserve System works. An exciting, new website has been created for precisely that purpose.

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by Walt Thiessen
(libertarian)
Friday, August 22, 2008

Most of us who know and understand something about the Fed have had the experience of trying to make sense of it when explaining it to someone else. The concepts involved can be very difficult, and even advocates of Austrian Economics find it can be painful to help someone understand the Federal Reserve System. So what can be done about it? I think that this is a subject that needs a collaborative effort. If a group of people who know something about the topic get together in one place and (over time) create an online book together, with everyone helping to outline, research, write, and edit the book, we can put together a book that makes the topic simple enough for anyone to comprehend.

While numerous books have been written on the subject, I believe there needs to be a free, online resource that anyone can visit who wants to understand fiat money and central banking. Toward that end, I've created a new website called Federal Reserve News where I've also created the first page of a new, collaborative book called The Federal Reserve Simplified.

The Nolan Chart website has quite a few contributors who have demonstrated various levels of understanding of the Federal Reserve System, and so I think we have the foundation for building a team of writers to tackle this difficult subject. Further, by inviting other writers from websites such as Mises.org and LewRockwell.com, we may be able to attract the assistance of writers who have larger amounts of experience with this subject. The project is organized in a wiki-like manner, similar to the way Wikipedia is organized. Individuals contribute to the outlining, researching, writing, and editing of the book on a volunteer basis. I've installed tools that will be familiar to those who have worked on collaborative projects of this kind in other forums.

Speaking of forums, there is also a forum section of the new website which allows anyone to post comments or questions about the book and/or about the Federal Reserve System itself.

In addition to the collaborative book, registered users at the new site may also contribute articles and blog entries of their own to the site, which will display on the home page in a manner similar to the way the Nolan Chart home page works.

If you have any knowledge or understanding as to how the Fed works or about the strengths and weaknesses of fiat money in comparison to hard money, I urge you to visit the new Federal Reserve News website and establish an account so you can help contribute to the effort. It only takes a few minutes to get started, and I think you'll find that there are many elements that are similar to the way the Nolan Chart website is organized.

We can continue to just complain about the Fed and how ignorant people are about it, or we can actually begin to do something about it. Will you grab this opportunity and run with it, or will you let it pass by without doing anything to help?

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©2008 Walt Thiessen, all rights reserved. You must have written permission from the author in order to republish this work.
Published: Friday, August 22, 2008
Last modified: Friday, August 22, 2008

The views expressed in this article are those of Walt Thiessen only and do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Walt Thiessen is solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.

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