By Maui Curmudgeon

Are three letters in any other combination as scary as FED are to so many? To libertarians it conjures up despots and demons. To other, in fact to most, those three letter spell utter confusion.

In following the line of presidents in this election year, and writing about them, I find that the issue of a national bank has always been contentious in this country. I join those bewildered by it. So, I went to a book written just for me about the FED, by a FED governor - Preston Martin: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Federal Reserve.

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By the Maui Curmudgeon (11th in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find out by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

JAMES K. POLK: 1845-1849 ~ 11th U.S. President

One of the best summaries of James Polk’s administration comes from historian Michael Holt, who writes, “Polk was far more successful than most presidents in defining and achieving an ambitious agenda. Few presidents have worked so hard at the job, demonstrated such detailed managerial capacity, or kept their administrations so untainted by corruption. Few have bequeathed the nation such an enduring legacy.”

The work killed Polk three months after leaving office.

A Representative from Tennessee, Polk supported Andrew Jackson, and was Speaker of the House from 1835 to 1839. He often fought Martin Van Buren, the president from 1837 to 1841, on the national stage. (Van Buren ran for president three times after he failed to win re-election). But while all this was politics as usual, it was land that gives Polk his historical place.

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