I have been the proverbial trekkie and fanatic of “Star Trek” since the original series aired in the mid 1960’s.     Having watched every episode dozens of times I can literally quote the dialogue line for line yet I still find it entertaining.   I constantly see people who have starred or guested on the show and I can be counted on to do the number one sign of a geek and say “See that person right there?  They were in “Star Trek.”

One of the great things about the show is how the story lines continually relate to current issues.     “Star Trek The Next Generation” had several topics that apply even today.  One episode’s subject was about a paranoid government that saw conspiracy in every action and the Captain and crew properly ridiculed them.    Nothing familiar there eh?

“Star Trek Voyager” had a particularly good episode called “Year of Hell” that as unlikely as it seems predicts and perfectly depicts Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve.     The storyline goes that an alien race invents a time machine (not The Flys) and was able to manipulate time lines with a beam that eliminated past objects, life forms, civilizations…zapping them out of existence thus changing the current time line.  It had an unexpected consequence however. The time ships first action accidentally killed,  zapped out of existence,  the wife of the time ship’s Captain. Struck with perpetual grief he spent 200 years trying to change the time line to a version that would bring his wife back into existence.    Tweaking this,  eliminating entire civilizations, over and again, he could not manipulate the time line to one where his wife once again existed.     Queue Voyager who eventually caused the time ship to destroy itself with its own time beam.   That ironic twist, the time ship zapping itself out of existence, was the action that brought back his wife.

Ben Bernanke is the time ship Captain who cant see the obvious answer.   No matter how hard he tries he wont be able to fix the problem.   The answer is simple as a made up TV show which can provide answers before the problem even exists. What we need is an ironic twist of the Federal Reserve.

(Here’s to split infinitives.   If I have split one,   goddamn it,  leave it split)