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Fed Up

By: Danielle DiMartino Booth
Narrated by: Danielle DiMartino Booth
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Summary

An insider's unflinching exposé of the toxic culture within the Federal Reserve.

In the early 2000s, as a Wall Street escapee writing a financial column for the Dallas Morning News, Booth attracted attention for her bold criticism of the Fed's low interest rate policies and her cautionary warnings about the bubbly housing market. Nobody was more surprised than she when the folks at the Dallas Federal Reserve invited her aboard. Figuring she could have more of an impact on Fed policies from the inside, she accepted the call to duty and rose to be one of Dallas Fed president Richard Fisher's closest advisors.

To her dismay, the culture at the Fed - and its leadership - were not just ignorant of the brewing financial crisis but indifferent to its very possibility. They interpreted their job of keeping the economy going to mean keeping Wall Street afloat at the expense of the American taxpayer. But bad Fed policy created unaffordable housing, skewed incentives, rampant corporate financial engineering, stagnant wages, an exodus from the labor force, and skyrocketing student debt. Booth observed firsthand how the Fed abdicated its responsibility to the American people both before and after the financial crisis - and how nobody within the Fed seems to have learned or changed from the experience.

Today the Federal Reserve is still controlled by 1,000 PhD economists and run by an unelected West Coast radical with no direct business experience. The Fed continues to enable Congress to grow our nation's ballooning debt and avoid making hard choices, despite the high psychological and monetary costs. And our addiction to the "heroin" of low interest rates is pushing our economy toward yet another collapse.

This book is Booth's clarion call for a change in the way America's most powerful financial institution is run - before it's too late.

©2017 Danielle DiMartino Booth (P)2017 Penguin Audio
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Critic reviews

“This view from the inside is not to be missed.” (A. Gary Shilling, president of A. Gary Shilling & Co., Inc.)

“Danielle DiMartino Booth has written an informed, thoughtful, eye-opening - and justifiably angry - memoir of her days at the Federal Reserve. A monetary broadside for our populist world.” (James Grant, publisher of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer)

“An outsider-turned-insider gives a gripping account of how false, but stubbornly held beliefs at the Fed helped create the global economic crisis as well as contribute to rising inequality in the United States. Brutally honest and engagingly written.... A mustread.” (William R. White, former economic adviser and head of the monetary and economic department at the Bank for International Settlements)

What listeners say about Fed Up

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Good insight into an extraordinary institution.

I've become a fan of Booth's commentary on economics in recent months, so was interested to read her account of her time at the Federal Reserve, and her critique of that institution. It's quite an eye-opener, the amount of power wielded by the almost entirely unaccountable body over the lives of hundreds of millions is incredible. And although those who wield that power do not come across in the book as "bad people", they do seem blinkered, snobbish, and cosseted from the consequences of their decisions.

I would have liked a little more of Booth's pithy and insightful economic analysis, but given how fast such material tends to age, I can understand why she chose to stick firmly to the main theme of her book. She also recommends some specific reforms that could be made to the reserve, which is something I always appreciate in books that make broad critiques.

The author does a good job narrating her own material.

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Fascinating

Danielle is an excellent storyteller and turns what could be quite a dull and heavy topic into a fascinating story. Shame is it’s actually true.

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Enlightening

Well delivered and interesting inside look at the FED and its group-think and politicisation. Read by the author which I always prefer.

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