Reader’s note: This story is satirical in nature and published in a spoof issue.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bercranky told a group of 30 students last week that fixing the world’s most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression was simply a matter of guessing randomly, “just winging it” and hoping for the best.

Bercranky, the first sitting Federal Reserve chairman to teach a college course, attributed his performance in curbing the 2008 financial meltdown to his “ability to fuck bitches and get money” along with his “mad swagging beard,” which he also suggested helped him get laid a total of 23 times last year – one time for every hundred home foreclosures in the average American town.

For the students – many of whom came to the lectures expecting to learn a comprehensive history of the central banking system – this admission of carelessness came as a surprise.

“I just couldn’t believe the chairman had no idea what the economy even was,” sophomore Ira Tool said. “Instead of articulating the steps he took to mitigate the crisis, Bercranky seemed more interested in what floor of Fulbright to find cheap weed.”

One student asked Bercranky how he could have possibly fudged his entire response to the 2008 financial crisis when holding decades of economic experience as well as a doctorate from MIT.

“Son, this was Cambridge, Mass. in the ‘70s,” Bercranky said of his graduate school days. “The last time I stepped into a library was to snort mescaline during the Carter administration.”

University officials, who toward the end of the lecture, became worried about Bercranky’s erratic admissions of ignorance, tried to shut down a question-and-answer session between the students and the chairman. Bercranky, however, would not have it.

“The key, kids, is to just mess around with the decimal points,” Bercranky said of efficient crisis management. “Whenever the economy dips, I usually light up a fat one and then proceed to press random buttons on my calculator until the numbers look cool.”

For the class, it was the end of Bercranky’s lecture that seemed to hold a possibility for a message of hope and inspiration.

“It will be the young people in this room who will make a difference in our country,” Bercranky began. “So all you freshman biddies in the audience, meet me in my Suburban after class and I’ll show you exactly where to begin…”