(photo via the Governor's office)

One of the most powerful financial tools in the United States federal government’s financial toolbox is its relationship to the Federal Reserve Bank, which can create money “out of thin air” and then use it to buy the federal government’s debt: treasury bills, bonds, and notes. While the primary purpose of these “open market operations” is to manage U.S. money supply, a convenient side effect is that that the Federal Reserve can, in the words of the Economist magazine, “buy up trillions of government