The Lords of Easy Money

"A fascinating page-turner....Theres something undeniably gratifying about an elegantly crafted morality tale and the business reporter Christopher Leonard has written a good one....A fascinating and propulsive story about the Federal Reserve yes, you read that right. Leonard, in the tradition of Michael Lewis, has taken an arcane subject, rife with the risk of incomprehensibility (or boredom), and built a riveting narrative in which the stakes couldnt be any clearer." The New York Times "Skillfully tells the story of how, over several decades, a phalanx of economic sophisticates at the Fed have badly misunderstood the U.S. economy and often come up with policies that fail to produce the intended results." The Wall Street Jornal "A timely additionappearing just as inflation is making headlines....Leonard writes vividly about a technical subject....By focusing on a regional banker, Leonard offers a refreshingly non-Washington view....The author is surely correct that many Americans view the Fed as an unelected power aligned with elites, perhaps contributing to the disaffection that exploded on Jan. 6, 2021." The Washington Post "Its tough to turn the nuances of monetary policy into personality-driven narrative. But Christopher Leonard has succeeded in doing just that with The Lords of Easy Money....He turns [an] unassuming economist into the protagonist of a compelling tale about how the Federal Reserve changed the entire nature of the American economy... Weaving together narrative non-fiction with big ideas can be difficult. One of the best things about this book is that through Hoenig, Leonard, a business journalist, is able to tell the whole, complicated half-century story of how we got to where we are now in a way that isnt at all wonky. There are real people here, making real decisions about the real world." The Financial Times "[A] bracing and closely reported chronicle....Leonards book is an indispensable account in many respectshis coverage of the invisible bailout of the repo market alone stands as a bracing case study in how the false pieties of quantitative easing directly stoked ruinous asset bubbles. But Leonard is also that rarest of financial reporters who conscientiously tracks the real-life consequences of the Olympian deliberations undertaken by the paper economys gatekeepers....richly reported, accessible, biting, and long-overdue." The New Republic "The book is a timely read to understand what could happen next through a thorough analysis of what this policy intervention looks like on the ground." Enterprise: The State of the Nation "We get his point and it is a good one. This has been an era of loose money and the benefits have been very unevenly distributed... The office politics of the Fed are well captured by Leonard, as is the intimidating physical setting." The New York Times "Leonard is skilled at explaining complicated financial maneuvering in a way normal people can understand... A good reminder of how uncertain a lot of monetary policy is." The Washington Free Beacon Leonard's wonderfully readable new book is about one of the most important, yet least covered and least understood, changes in American life. That's the effect of the dramatically increased role in financial markets played by the Federal Reserve. As Leonard convincingly argues, it might be nothing short of catastrophic. Bethany McLean, New York Times bestselling co-author of The Smartest Guys in the Room An essential, engrossing and, above all, human tale featuring the central banker who dared to dissent from the party line and a factory worker whose sufferings are traceable to that dissidents failure to carry his case. A monetary page-turner? Christopher Leonard has actually produced one. James Grant, founder and editor of Interest Rat

Christopher Leonard is a business reporter whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, and Bloomberg Businessweek. He is the New York Times bestselling author of The Meat Racket and Kochland, which won the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award.