This is the Reason interview. I'm Zach Weissmuller. Thanks for listening. This is the audio

version of a video live stream that takes place every Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern time. Go to

reason.com to check that out in real time or to our YouTube channel, YouTube.com forward slash reason TV.

At its core, money is a ledger, writes investment analyst Lynn Alden in her new book,

Broken Money, Why Our Financial System is failing us and how we can make it better.

If money is a ledger, the most important question to consider, she says,

is who controls the ledger. I spoke with Alden about her book, which is a true tour to force that

lays out the history of money from its inception to present, takes you deep into the dueling schools

of thought around money's fundamental

properties, offers a macro analysis of today's global monetary and fiscal situation,

and charts a path forward for transitioning the world to better, more sound money in the future.

If you care about any of this, and really, who doesn't care about money,

this one is a must read. Here's the recent interview with Lynn Alden. Lin Alden, I'm very

excited to have the opportunity to talk about this with you. Thank you for joining me today.

Thank you for having me. I always happen to be here. The opening section of your book is titled,

What is Money? And spoiler alert, your answer is that it's at its core, money is a ledger.

How did you come to that conclusion and what do you mean by it?

So that's not something that appears a lot in literature.

I've heard it said by a number of people.

And I later found out that Ventis Casares had a number of talks that he gave on that subject.

So it's not something that I completely made up,

but it's something that I just does not really get a lot of exploration in literature anywhere,

...