The “novel” coronavirus pandemic marks the greatest turning point in U.S. monetary history since the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. In large measure, the “novel” coronavirus pandemic narrative serves as a convenient cover story that distracts from and even masks the Federal Reserve’s unprecedented maneuvers in 2020—maneuvers that happen to have been planned and discussed in August 2019 some four months prior to the first mention of any “novel” virus in Wuhan, China. What marks the Fed’s maneuvers in March 2020 as unprecedented really is not its sudden creation of $3.5 trillion in reserves; that amount, $3.5 trillion...