Funny Money Fed Issues Comic Book To Teach The Dismal Science

Inflation goes up! OOOOPH! Interest rates rise! BAMMM!

The white-shirt economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York have put out a comic book 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.

Central bankers don’t expect teenagers 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,” said comic book author Ed Steinberg, an economics professor who also works in the New York Fed’s communications department. “We’re trying to make the material more palatable.”

“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 comicbook 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.”

Ooooph! Whap! POW!!!