To counteract rising inflation, the Federal Reserve introduces the Goldfish standard [#4]

Jerome H. Powell, the current chair of the Federal Reserve, issued a statement Thursday announcing the Federal Reserve’s official introduction of the Goldfish standard.

The new system allows U.S. citizens to trade twenty U.S. dollars for fifty ounces of Goldfish Cheddar Cheese Crackers. Additionally, all U.S. corporations and vendors are now required to accept Goldfish as legal tender.

Critics are already wondering about the apparent inconvenience of carrying three pounds of Goldfish for every $20 that a consumer wishes to hold. However, the Federal Reserve firmly believes that it has implemented an effective solution.

“Goldfish Pretzel Crackers,” the Federal Reserve Board stated, “will operate as a more concentrated form of money. One Goldfish Pretzel Cracker will represent $10 in today’s economy.”

Seemingly delighted by the new changes, large banks posted the following comments on the Fed’s official Twitter account:

Bank of America [at 10:47:52 UTC on Dec 15, 2022] posted: “yoooooo what on earth are you doing?? and now we have to completely revamp our bank’s depository system!! not cool @federalreserve!!!”

JPMorgan Chase [at 10:48:31 UTC on Dec 15, 2022] posted: “this has to be a joke. we are NOT going to allow people to deposit GOLDFISH in our banks. #disgrace #to #banking.”

CitiBank [at 10:52:10 UTC on Dec 15, 2022] posted: “goodbye america’s banking system! t’was nice knowing you.”

Many critics also wonder why the Goldfish standard was introduced in the first place. In an interview with FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, Powell lamented that the U.S. economy was “experiencing way too much inflation” and that “it needed to be stopped”.

Powell said that “one of the Board’s interns came into the meeting room with a carton of Goldfish” and that “once he saw it, he immediately knew the solution to the nation’s inflationary troubles.”

The Fed desperately hopes the new system will help combat runaway inflation, since it’s much harder to “print” Goldfish than money. In fact, the director of the U.S. Mint said:

“In the old days, when we wanted to print money, we typed some obscenely large number into our computer and then our fancy printers would do all the work. Now, if we want to print, say $2B, we have to manufacture 156,250 tons of Goldfish Cheddar Cheese Crackers!!”

At the time of publishing, the federal government has officially purchased and integrated Campbell Soup Company into the U.S. Mint. Campbell Soup Company owns Pepperidge Farm, which manufactures Goldfish.

This article was quite fun to write! Satire is really difficult to get just right, but I think this one came out okay.

Disclaimer #1: No trademark or copyright infringement intended. Trademark (™) and copyright (®) symbols were not included in the article for sake of readability.