Graeber Ch. 12

In this chapter I’d like to focus on Graber’s explanation of the current US monetary system and brief history of the US and banks.  I’m a history major that’s taken the US history surveys.  We learned about the history of the US economy as part of our overview but, my goodness, I am so sure we didn’t talk about some of the stuff Graeber went over—I would have definitely remembered that class.  Though—granted—those weren’t economically focused classes, it still seems incredible that this information is almost hidden from people. Graeber explains the way the Federal Reserve is tied to the US Federal Government, and how the US is able to create money out of debt, or “out of thin air”.

I enjoyed the historical perspective that Graeber brought to the chapter.  He does this in almost all of his chapters but because this chapter spoke to more recent events, or at least events in my lifetime, I think the chapter hit home more.  Though I don’t think he outright mentions it, one of the things I was most interested in was the wealth disparity between citizens of the United States.  Graeber offers a lot of examples but I’m still confused over the effects of the US floating the USD.  I understand the effects—but I’m not sure I guess how exactly they all tie together.