Christopher Leonard Quotes

“Asset inflation, however, was out of control by 1998. But this didn’t raise much public concern. When asset inflation gets out of hand, people don’t call it inflation. They call it a boom.”

“Central banks cause inflation when they keep interest rates too low for too long.”

“In 1998, it was undeniable that the stock market boom was closely tied to the Fed’s policies. In July, Greenspan warned that stock prices might be unsustainably high, which made traders panic at the thought that the Fed would raise rates and tighten the money supply.

Between July and August, stock market prices fell by about 18 percent. In response, the Fed cut rates again from 5.5 percent to about 4.8 percent in just a couple of months. The stock market bounced back.”

“Quantitative easing was designed and initiated with the specific goal of inflating stock market prices.”

“The bailout of 2020 — the largest expenditure of American public resources since World War II — solidified and entrenched an economic regime that had been quietly and steadily constructed, largely by the Federal Reserve, during the previous decade.

The resources from this bailout went largely to the entities that were strengthened by the policies of ZIRP and QE. It went to large corporations that used borrowed money to buy out their competitors; it went to the very richest of Americans.”

“The Federal Reserve system is unlike any other in the world; it is a crazy genetic mashup of different animals, part private bank and part government agency.”