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.
