BREAKDOWN: The Mirage of the Money Printer... Why the Fed Is More PR Than Policy, Feat. Jeffrey P. Snider

The meme is “money printer go brrr,” but according to this macro expert, central banks have almost no power to actually influence money itself.

This episode is sponsored by Bitstamp and Ciphertrace.

The conventional wisdom is that central banks are the most important economic actors in the world. Markets hang on their every word.

Yet, what if that power has less to do with actual monetary policy and more to do with how the performance of that policy creates a self-fulfilling prophecy as market actors respond to media coverage?

Jeff Snider is the head of global research at Alhambra Investments. In this conversation, he and NLW explore:

• How the Fed lost the ability to even determine what the money supply is.
• How the financialization in the 1980s exacerbated monetary confusion.
• Why the most important force in the global economy isn’t central banks but the eurodollar and shadow banking system.
• How the eurodollar and shadow banking sector creates a drag on real economic growth.
• Why the conventional wisdom and “central bank savior” narrative around 2008 was dead wrong.
• The problem with “survivor’s euphoria.”
• Why “money printer go brr” is actually a flood myth.