On todays podcast we are happy to be hosting Christopher Leonard, a New York Times bestselling journalist and author of the recently released book “The Lords of Easy Money - How the Federal Reserve Broke the American Economy”.

On the podcast we talk about the book, why the FED was created, how this changed with the implementation of Quantitative Easing and how these actions have led to the asset inflation we have seen over the past 13 years. I hope you enjoy!

You can buy the book here - 

Kindle - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lords-Easy-Money-Federal-American-ebook/dp/B09843RVM5/
Hardcover - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lords-Easy-Money-Federal-American/dp/1982166630/

0:00 - Podcast Introduction
0:22 - What influenced Chris to write the book?
2:50 - People treat QE as a necessary evil, but it didn’t have to be the case
4:37 - Who is Thomas Hoenig and why is he so important to the story?
8:00 - The need for consensus in the FED
11:35 - Why was the FED created and how did QE change their meaning?
16:40 - How the 70’s and the actions taken then compare to today?
22:10 - Price increases leading to instability 
24:00 - How many people have dropped from the middle class
26:55 - Why QE hasn’t trickled down and stayed in many financial tools?
31:10 - Greenspan Put and how that increases risk appetite in the market?
35:00 - Stark increase in the gap between Middle Class and Upper Class
37:00 - The FEDs bailing out highly leveraged Hedge Funds in 2019
41:50 - Why did the FED complicate their communications?
48:55 - Linked to transitory inflation and how the FED denied for as long as possible
51:05 - Why did Jerome Powell’s views change while being a part of the FED?
59:30 - One message to take away from the interview?

Christopher Leonard is a business reporter whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, and Bloomberg Businessweek. He is the author of The Lords of Easy Money, The Meat Racket and Kochland, which won the J. Anthony Lukas Work-In-Progress Award. 

Christopher Leonard - 

Website - http://www.christopherleonard.biz/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/CLeonardNews
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-leonard-605a767/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ChristopherLeonardAuthor/?ref=page_internal

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