Summary of Christopher Leonard’s The Lords of Easy Money

Sample Book Insights:

#1 The Federal Reserve System is the only institution in the world that can create American dollars at will. Because he was a senior official at the Federal Reserve, Thomas Hoenig had to think about money all the time. He had to think about it as a system to be managed and managed just right, or else terrible things might happen.

#2 For a year, Hoenig had been voting no. If you tallied his votes during 2010, the tally would read: no, no, no, no, no, and no. His dissents had become expected, but they were also startling if you considered Tom Hoenig’s character. He was a rule-follower.

#3 The American financial system had collapsed in late 2008, after the investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed. The world of central banking was neatly divided into two eras: pre-GFC and post-GFC. The GFC itself was apocalyptic.

#4 The Fed is like a group of engineers in the control room of a nuclear power plant. They heat up the reactor, by cutting rates, when more power is needed. And they cool down the reactor, by raising rates, when conditions are getting too hot.