Felix Salmon reports:

Bullard’s a career central banker who has never had a lucrative private-sector career, but he’s still doing OK for himself: his annual salary is $281,300, which should be more than enough to bring up a family of four in St Louis.

Here’s the thing, though: Bullard’s disclosure form is completely blank. Which means that, except for his house and his Federal Reserve retirement benefits, he has no investments at all worth more than $1,000 — not even a savings account. Or, to put it another way, the president of the St Louis Fed, earning well over a quarter of a million dollars a year, is living paycheck-to-paycheck. Every two weeks, he gets paid $10,819, less taxes and deductions, and yet by the end of the year he still doesn’t have even $1,000 in a checking account.

As well, he should.

Will Bullard be laid-off: Ha!

Is there a private label investment vehicle more secure than his Fed retirement benefits: Double-Ha!

The only question is whether he has disability insurance – which would be wise even in his case.

Otherwise, wherefore savings?

Savings are just a promise from one human to another. All promises can be broken. Bullard has a set of promises – explicit and implicit – from the folks who actually own the printing presses. Those are the kind of promises you want.

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