Devil Take The Hindmost by Edward Chancellor (pg. 192)

The Federal Reserve, with its ability to control interest rates and conduct “open market operations”–buying and selling government bonds in order to affect the supply of money available to banks–was hailed in the 1920s as “the remedy to the whole problem of booms, slumps, and panics.” As a result, bankers and speculators alike were lulled into a false security which led the to operate irresponsibly, exacerbating the severity of the ensuing class.