This New York Times bestselling book by investigative business journalist Christopher Leonard explores one of the most powerful yet least understood institutions in the United States: the Federal Reserve. Through extensive reporting and insider insight, Leonard argues that Federal Reserve policies over the past decade, especially under Chairman Jerome Powell, have intensified inequality and left the American economy increasingly fragile.
When Americans search for explanations behind widening wealth gaps, persistent inflation, and repeated financial crises, few suspect the Federal Reserve. For much of its history, the institution has been praised by politicians, financial markets, and the media. During periods of growth, it was celebrated as a competent manager of economic stability. After the 2008 financial collapse, it was widely credited with preventing a complete economic disaster.
Leonard challenges this familiar narrative. He provides a detailed inside account of how Federal Reserve decisions reshaped the economy in ways that favored financial markets while weakening long-term stability. According to the book, a decisive turning point occurred on November 3, 2010, when the Fed introduced an unprecedented policy known as quantitative easing, fundamentally altering modern American capitalism.
Quantitative easing dramatically expanded the money supply, increasing it more than fourfold within only a few years. Officially, the policy aimed to stabilize financial markets and encourage lending across the economy. In practice, however, it relied heavily on risk. By flooding the financial system with cheap money, the Fed encouraged banks, hedge funds, and investors to assume increasingly dangerous levels of leverage in search of higher returns.
Federal Reserve officials were aware of the dangers. Internal discussions acknowledged that quantitative easing was unlikely to generate widespread job growth and carried uncertain long-term consequences. Despite these warnings, the policy continued. Once trillions of dollars entered the system, the Fed faced an unexpected dilemma. Any attempt to reduce stimulus triggered panic in financial markets, forcing policymakers to intervene repeatedly to prevent crashes.
This dependency intensified during the COVID-19 crisis, when the Federal Reserve unleashed an extraordinary wave of money creation, injecting massive sums into the economy within months. Financial markets surged to record highs, but underlying weaknesses worsened. The economy became increasingly fragile and dependent on constant intervention to sustain growth and avoid collapse.
Over time, the consequences became impossible to ignore. The wealth gap widened dramatically as asset prices soared. Stocks, housing, and bonds rose sharply, disproportionately benefiting those who already owned capital. Meanwhile, middle-class Americans faced stagnant wages, rising living costs, and growing debt from credit cards, auto loans, and student loans. Inflation steadily eroded purchasing power, reducing real income gains.
At the same time, financial institutions once described as too big to fail grew even larger and more influential. The financial system became dependent on continuous support, cycling through booms, busts, and bailouts. Leonard argues this outcome was predictable, driven by policy decisions that prioritized financial markets over long-term economic resilience.
The book follows the story through a central figure who repeatedly warned about the dangers of quantitative easing. Those warnings were largely ignored as markets celebrated soaring asset prices. Blending economic history, investigative journalism, and human narratives, Leonard shows how good intentions and unchecked authority combined to create a fragile economic system.
Provocative, meticulously researched, and deeply unsettling, this book explains how modern monetary policy reshaped American capitalism. It reveals why today’s economy rests on an unstable foundation and why future crises may prove far more damaging than most people expect.
