Ben Bernanke's Fed

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Secrets of the Temple

Demystifying the Fed

In William Greider’s famous book, The Secrets of the Temple, the Fed is described as a mysterious—almost religious—institution: “The governors of the Federal Reserve decided the largest of questions of the political economy, including who shall prosper and who shall fail, yet their role remained opaque and mysterious.”¹ While this was partly true when the book was published in 1987, today there are no secrets, and the core principals can be explained in a few pages. So let’s take a look at how the Fed manages the economy. Let’s explore the Fed’s complicated decision structure, how changes in the interest ...