annenberg media ♪ annenberg media ♪ oh, we could even wreckore. we cothis country,more. we're not going to do it, senator. schoumacher: in 1975, fed chairman arthur burns refused to open the monetary floodgates to fight rising unemployment. why was he holding back? four years later, chairman paul volcker set the fed on a course that would lead to the worst recession since the great depression. what could have been worth such a terrible price? on october 20, 1987, the heartbeat of the financial world nearly fluttered out. what could new fed chairman alan greenspan do to revive the patient? during the 1970s and '80s, the federal reserve adopted long-term policies to halt inflation and ease unemployment. but what would the fed do in an economic emergency? monetary policy -- how well does it work? that's the question economic analyst richard gill and i will investigate on this edition of "economics usa." i'm david schoumacher. the federal reserve board is responsible for deciding how much money the economy needs to grow. in the early 1970s, the fed held to a policy of using