Numbers

Some interesting numbers to ponder over the next time you hear a story about the Federal Reserve or its chairman, Ben Bernanke. (Due to some unknown HTML artifact, you may have to scroll down some white space to see the rest of this post)

United States GDP	$12.49 trillion	source
Market capitalization of companies listed on the NYSE	$21 trillion	source
Money supply (M2) in the US as of August 2004	$9.26 trillion	source
Total assets held by the Federal Reserve Banks, which supposedly control the US economy (FY2005)	$0.065 trillion	source

For insight into the miniscule size of the Federal Reserve Bank, I am thankful to Dr John Hussman of Hussman Econometrics and manager of the Hussman Funds.