“Fed Voted to Keep Rates Steady Out of Confusion” is the headline up this evening on the New York Times Web site, linking to a story in respect of the central bankers’ decision against raising interest rates. The story doesn’t actually use the word “confusion,” so to what the headline writer was referring is less than clear. Then again, too, the way they write headlines at the Times is that they churn them out in stream of consciousness and then attach them to random stories. The particular genius of this headline is that it is automatically applicable to any Fed meeting.

That is a feature of the age of fiat money. When the dollar has no definition in law, how in the name of Midas is the Fed supposed to know where to put interest rates? The value of the Federal Reserve Notes the central bank issues has been plunging for half a year — a one-dollar Federal Reserve Note is now is now being valued at less than a 1,360th of an ounce of gold. In January it was valued at more than a 1,080th of an ounce of gold. All this running down in the value of the Fed’s notes hasn’t done a thing for the economy, which has led to a pattern that the Times calls “familiar.”

The pattern it describes as follows: “The Fed entered the year predicting stronger growth and a gradual return to higher interest rates. It has beat a slow retreat from both predictions as the data has disappointed its expectations.” This is a cagey observation by the Times; the Wall Street Journal editorial page has been onto the story for years. Meantime, the decision of Britain to quit the European Union has added to the confusion of those who had predicted the British would vote to remain. Those who were wrong about Brexit now predict Brexit will be a drag on growth.

Here’s the question. How long will it take for the Fed to realize that its job would be easier, its humiliation less constant were its mandate reduced to managing a dollar whose value is defined in law as a given number of ounces of gold? It has been more than half a year since the House, by a comfortable vote of Republicans and some Democrats, passed the Fed Oversight Reform and Modernization Act, which opens the door to monetary reform. Donald Trump understands that currency manipulation, to use his phrasing, is part of the problem facing our economy (and others’). When is he going to address the confusion at the Fed?