Millions of consumers can’t control the supply of money, though. They might control the interest rate, given a particular supply of money, but they don’t control the supply. If they did, and they were able to control it at a level that made economic sense, then we would not have had the Depression, we in fact would not have any recessions or inflation. Yet we do. I’ll grant you that the Fed also does not have complete control over this, and if it did, it could not choose the precisely perfect level anyway, but they at least have some control, and are able to resist unfavorable trends to some degree. The hard part is that there are times when you’ve got unfavorable trends in every direction. Hence, we’ve got both inflation and slow growth. The Fed obviously can’t fix that, and must choose between the two or arrive at some happy medium, but if the economy is headed downward, as well as prices, like in 2001, then the Fed has a simple decision, and had better make it, or we end up in a Depression. Without the Fed, it would be pure luck if the money supply grew at the right rate.
Money is controlled and created by the market, like any other good.
Now, the Government's responsibility is make sure that the money is legitimate.
It is not the Government's role to make the money, no more then it is it's role to make any other good.
The cause of depressions is the Fed, flooding the system with money it created out of thin air.
That in turn causes interest rates to be artificially low, sending wrong messages to the market and causing maleinvestment in capital.
When the inflation finally wears off, the market contracts in response, thus, a depression.
The Government must protect the market, not disturb it with phony money and credit.