The Lords of Easy Money

How the Federal Reserve Broke the American Economy

By: Christopher Leonard

Narrated by: Jacques Roy

Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins

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.

Excellent Book!

Everyone should read or listen to this book
Fantastic and thoughtful explanation of how the Fed works and why our financial system is horribly skewed to help the wealthy while crushing everyone else

Solid content explaining how the FED manipulates $

Solid content! One of the most up to date and in depth explanations of the plumbing of the FED from an inside perspective. I kept being reminded of why our founding father’s wrote in the constitution that only Gold and Silver are legal tender. No one human being locked in a small room with a computer (FED buyer) should be allowed to create billions of fiat currency with the click of a computer mouse, especially the world’s reserve currency.

Makes understanding our economy clear

The author makes seemingly difficult concepts and Fed speak easy to comprehend for the average listener. Very impressed by how he ties together history and recent history to current events. Anybody looking to understand the current state of the American economy should definitely pick up this book!

Great book!

I thought the information priceless and the story well told, but the anti-Trump sentiment was an unnecessary disappointment.

Fantastic!

As Moe said to Curley; “I’ll explain it so even you understand it” 🤣
Leonard does a tremendous job of piecing together recent FED 0% interest rate policies and quantitative easing as it relates to our economy. He does this in a non-polemical way, just by putting the pieces together and tracing the trend lines that result from these policies. Fascinating and informative, essential information.
Very nicely read by Mr Roy

Robinhood is really a tool for the Big Institutions to follow order flow

Very Informative..Intriguing and proficiently detailed on the Federal reserve operates on a long term scale

Fascinating and well-read book!

This is a fascinating look at the Federal Reserve. It definitely helps explain part of what has been happening in our economy over the last 40 years or so. Christopher Leonard has a captivating writing style that makes it easier to understand what the FED has been doing with it's monetary policy. Jacques Roy does an excellent job reading the book. I listened to it twice in one month and could easily listen again. I definitely recommend it!

An informative and concerning peek behind the curtain

This book gives a little behind the curtain view of a penthouse back room process of which the common citizen only gets small snippets rather than the big picture. It sheds light on the interconnection between the various government entities, central and big banks, Wall Street, and the corporate players. It tells a story that is ongoing even as the book ends. There’s a whole lot more going on than we get to see and the devil is truly in the details.

Informative and Interesting Though Biased

Really great narration and a fascinating topic. Purely informative up until the last few chapters where the author gets a bit politically left leaning. Otherwise great.

Great book for understanding the economic machine

This is a great title for anyone trying to understand how the economic machine works, what cheap money means, how so the interest rates affect everything and so on.