Jeff Berwick Quotes

I am afraid the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can and do create money. And they who control the credit of the nation direct the policy of Governments and hold in the hollow of their hand the destiny of the people

And so we have to be careful with looking at additional stimulus that we don't provoke an increase in the bond rate and then offset a lot of the stimulus we've already got.

Debt, we've learned, is the match that lights the fire of every crisis. Every crisis has its own set of villains - pick your favorite: bankers, regulators, central bankers, politicians, overzealous consumers, credit rating agencies - but all require one similar ingredient to create a true crisis: too much leverage.

Bond investors want growth much like equity investors, and to the extent that too much austerity leads to recession or stagnation then credit spreads widen out - even if a country can print its own currency and write its own cheques.

The phrase 'perception is reality' is overused generally. But perception can be reality in monetary policy. The bond market doesn't act merely on what it sees. It acts on what it expects of the Fed or the government.

To finance deficits, the government must sell bonds to investors, competing for capital that could otherwise be used to invest in stocks or corporate bonds. Government borrowings raise long-term interest rates, stifling economic growth.

Now the truth is, a president really can't control the economy, although his policies do have some effect on it.

All the central banks are doing is substituting one form of debt with another form of debt. They're issuing short term debt and using it to buy long term debt. In finance, we tend to think that's a neutral activity, even though those stimulus programs are huge.

It is the central bank governor, unlike other regulators or government secretaries, who has command over significant policy levers and has to occasionally disagree with the most powerful people in the country.

The best time to make deficit reduction a priority is when the inflation rate and the bond market give you some indication that you are headed for a dangerous inflationary spiral.

The sale of Treasury bonds, notes, and bills finances the U.S. government, and those securities are, in turn, a primary vehicle for savings for a wide range of U.S. households. Treasury securities are also an important source of collateral within the financial system.

Manipulating the bond market is so greatly reducing the cost of capital that so far companies have been able to maintain profit margins without raising prices. As a result, we've been exchanging capital cost for commodity costs but you can only do that for so long.

The one thing people don't appreciate, I think, is that central banking is not a new development. It's been around for a very long time.

I have never believed that central banks should have rigid inflation targeting. That is not a good thing to stabilize. There is nothing in economic theory to back this.

Inflation is one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation.

I’ve always been a little nervous about the Fed. Quite frankly, I’m a little nervous about the degree of their independence.

No President has yet repealed the business cycle.

The normal half-brained politician sometimes doesn't understand capital markets.

There isn’t that much that Washington can do to effect the economy.

The chief duty of the National Government in connection with the currency of the country is to coin money and declare its value.

We have, in this country, one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board. This evil institution has impoverished the people of the United States and has practically bankrupted our government. It has done this through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it

No one single thing that we do will control inflation

I don’t think that the Fed [Federal Reserve] ever can be or should be a prisoner of the markets.

If you believe in free markets, why do we have to have the Federal Reserve set interest rates?

The Federal Reserve is playing a mind game—but with enormous real-world consequences.