The Grant Williams Podcast The Hundred Year Pivot Ep. 7 – Edward Chancellor
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Aug 7, 2025 
In this enlightening conversation, financial historian Edward Chancellor shares his insights on the century-long evolution of money and interest rates. He explores the shift from gold-backed currency to fiat money and the speculative bubbles that have emerged as a result. Chancellor discusses the political and societal ramifications of mispriced money and rising wealth inequality, along with the possibility of returning to sounder forms of money. He also reflects on the cyclical nature of economies and the historical contexts that shape our financial future.
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Fiat Money Enables Rate Extremes
- Moving from a gold-based to a fiat system created capacity for both extreme inflation and extreme negative rates.
- Fiat money removed natural limits on interest rates and enabled unprecedented rate distortions.
Bubbles Fueled By Repeated Central-Bank Support
- Central-bank interventions repeatedly seeded speculative booms across decades.
- Each crisis prompted easier policy that birthed larger bubbles and deeper distortions.
Bubbles No Longer Have Clean Endings
- Recent cycles moved from one extreme bubble to another without clean resets.
- The modern system produces overlapping, larger excesses that are harder to unwind.
