'Age of Easy Money' Explores Federal Reserve’s Monetary Experiment and Its Impact on the Economy

KQED's Forum

KQED

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.2 • 726 Ratings

🗓️ 21 March 2023

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The new PBS Frontline documentary, “Age of Easy Money” traces how the Federal Reserve’s unprecedented monetary experiment has both helped and hurt the American economy. Beginning in 2008, the Federal Reserve stepped in to prop up a banking system on the verge of collapse. In the decade that followed, with low interest rates and massive infusions of cash into the system, the Fed enabled a bull stock market and bubbles in the housing, financial and technology markets. But now, three years after its efforts to keep the economy afloat during the pandemic, it seems the party may be over. Inflation and rising interest rates have rattled the market, and experts believe a historic course correction may be imminent. We’ll talk about the documentary, the consequences of Federal Reserve policy, and take your questions. Guests: James Jacoby, director, producer, correspondent; Frontline - Jacoby's latest film is "Age of Easy Money." Jacoby has won an Emmy award for his previous film "Amazon Empire," and a Peabody award for his film "The Facebook Dilemma" Anya Bourg, producer, Frontline - Bourg is a producer and writer on the new Frontline documentary "Age of Easy Money." She has previously worked on "The Facebook Dilemma" and prior to joining Frontline, spent a decade at "60 Minutes" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:59.2	From KQED.
1:14.2	From KQD in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal.
1:19.1	In the years between the financial crisis and now, the Federal Reserve has come to play an outsized role in the functioning of not just the U.S. economy, but global markets.
1:23.6	For almost 15 years, the Fed kept interest rates low and just plowed money into the financial system.
1:30.4	The scale of the Fed's interventions in the world dwarfed nearly every governmental force outside the Chinese Communist Party.
1:36.7	And yet here in our democracy, the Fed lies outside our democratic institutions, making decisions according to its own technocratic principles.
1:45.3	A new frontline documentary, Age of Easy Money, questions the wisdom of the Fed and whether we're
1:50.1	headed for a long period of brutal adjustment to the end of easy money.
1:54.1	We talk to the journalist behind it after this news.
2:04.4	Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal.
2:10.6	The new PBS Frontline documentary, Age of Easy Money, traces how the Federal Reserve's unprecedented monetary experiment has both helped and hurt the American economy.
	...

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