The consumer price index rose to 5% in May, a level it had not reached since August 2008, when it was at 5.4%. Economists and the business community are now wondering when the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates to combat and control inflation. Changing interest rates may affect the stock market, our economy, and our lives - the lives of ordinary Americans, which means that the Federal Reserve is a very powerful institution, and an independent one. But where did the Federal Reserve come from? There is nothing about it in the Constitution. We did not have a Federal Reserve at our founding. We merely had a private bank that acted as America's de facto central bank. But that was too much for us Americans - giving that much power to one bank. So, until 1913 America didn't have a central bank... and for some time after its establishment, the Federal Reserve was not the powerful entity that it is today. For example, it hardly mattered during the Great Depression.    

To better understand the history of the Federal Reserve, in this episode we speak with Roger Lowenstein. Mr. Lowenstein is a financial journalist and writer. He reported for The Wall Street Journal for more than a decade. His work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The New York Review of Books, Fortune, The New York Times Magazine, and other publications. His books include Buffett, When Genius Failed, Origins of the Crash, While America Aged, and The End of Wall Street. In addition, he is the author of a 2015 book titled "America's Bank, THE EPIC STRUGGLE TO CREATE THE FEDERAL RESERVE"… which nicely fits with this episode's history behind the news.  

This is the link http://rogerlowenstein.com/news to Mr. Lowenstein's website, which includes a list of his numerous publications.