Christopher Leonard gives insight on how the Federal Reserve creates wealth
Christopher Leonard reveals to ‘Tucker Carlson Today’ how many and which accounts the Federal Reserve releases money into.
Author of "The Lords of Easy Money: How the Federal Reserve Broke the American Economy," joined "Tucker Carlson Today" to take a deep dive into the mechanics of the Federal Reserve and where the money goes after it is printed.
The business journalist and reporter of about 20 years explained to Carlson that he had "for better or worse," become "obsessed with the Federal Reserve about five years ago."
Leonard told Carlson that he became fascinated with the inner workings of the fed after interviewing someone on Wall Street.
"I think, because as a business reporter, I have the real privilege of getting to interview people in all different walks of life. And that includes a lot of people who happen to run hedge funds, and who trade on Wall Street. And it was actually a guy like that who started talking to me, back in 2016, about the amazing changes that the Federal Reserve had made to our economic system and our financial system," said Leonard.
The U.S. Federal Reserve Building is pictured in Washington. (REUTERS)
The business reporter admitted that after this first interview, he told Tucker he thought "you know, this guy's got to be a little crazy. This can't be right." Leonard went on to explain that one of the initial headlines from that conversation was the that, in the first century of its existence, the Fed had printed about $900 billion.
"And what we mean by that is the Fed had sort of steadily increased the monetary base, or the pool of original dollars that only the Fed can create-- I believe it's even below M1. It's the foundation-- It's just M," explained Leonard.
Leonard described how the Fed increased this pool of money to roughly $900 billion. "After '08 and '09, and over the decade of the 2010s, the Fed prints 350 years worth of money in a few years. So that's different. That's a step change. And that was something that actually reordered our economic system. And I have to admit, even as a business reporter who'd been in the business a long time, I did not understand."
The author told Carlson that at the time he did not "understand" the significance of this change, how far-reaching it was, and the fragility it has put into our entire economic system.
"So that's what got me on the path of researching about this. And I wanted to set about to explain in really clear, really clear, plain English to people what the Fed is, how it works, and how it's transformed our economy."
To hear Christopher's full deep dive into the Fed and for more interviews, watch "Tucker Carlson Today" available on Fox Nation.
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