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  • The Lords of Easy Money

  • How the Federal Reserve Broke the American Economy
  • Written by: Christopher Leonard
  • Narrated by: Jacques Roy
  • Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (36 ratings)

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The Lords of Easy Money

Written by: Christopher Leonard
Narrated by: Jacques Roy
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Publisher's Summary

The New York Times bestseller from business journalist Christopher Leonard infiltrates one of America’s most mysterious institutions—the Federal Reserve—to show how its policies spearheaded by Chairman Jerome Powell over the past ten years have accelerated income inequality and put our country’s economic stability at risk.

If you asked most people what forces led to today’s unprecedented income inequality and financial crashes, no one would say the Federal Reserve. For most of its history, the Fed has enjoyed the fawning adoration of the press. When the economy grew, it was credited to the Fed. When the economy imploded in 2008, the Fed got credit for rescuing us.

But here, for the first time, is the inside story of how the Fed has reshaped the American economy for the worse. It all started on November 3, 2010, when the Fed began a radical intervention called quantitative easing. In just a few short years, the Fed more than quadrupled the money supply with one goal: to encourage banks and other investors to extend more risky debt. Leaders at the Fed knew that they were undertaking a bold experiment that would produce few real jobs, with long-term risks that were hard to measure. But the Fed proceeded anyway…and then found itself trapped. Once it printed all that money, there was no way to withdraw it from circulation. The Fed tried several times, only to see the market start to crash, at which point the Fed turned the money spigot back on. That’s what it did when COVID hit, printing 300 years’ worth of money in a few short months.

Which brings us to now: Ten years on, the gap between the rich and poor has grown dramatically, inflation is raging, and the stock market is driven by boom, busts, and bailouts. Middle-class Americans seem stuck in a stage of permanent stagnation, with wage gains wiped out by high prices even as they remain buried under credit card debt, car loan debt, and student debt. Meanwhile, the “too big to fail” banks remain bigger and more powerful than ever while the richest Americans enjoy the gains of a hyper-charged financial system.

The Lords of Easy Money “skillfully” (The Wall Street Journal) tells the “fascinating” (The New York Times) tale of how quantitative easing is imperiling the American economy through the story of the one man who tried to warn us. This is the first inside story of how we really got here—and why our economy rests on such unstable ground.

©2022 Christopher Leonard. All rights reserved. (P)2022 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Great summary of the FED’s money printing

This is a very informative story of how the federal reserve and the treasury work together with wall stuff to print money and set interest rates to prevent risk from flushing out of the system.

I’ll be listening to this a second time, there’s a lot to learn about how the system of money operates behind the curtain.

There were a few points on the book where I found bias - but mostly it seems like a very unbiased and informative story of the evolution (or regression) of the financial system.

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Great analysis but suffers from overt political bias

Writer has a clear political bias against non progressive ideologies which turned me off during the story. Also presented a closed minded approach to non mainstream ideas. Did enjoy the depth of information on the federal reserve and its policies.

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