Should Money Be Free? Rethinking Interest Rates. Edward Chancellor

Ever since the 2008 financial crisis and recession, central bankers and most economists have agreed that it's good to keep interest rates as low as possible. Making it easy to borrow money very cheaply helps the economy recover from recessions and the COVID pandemic.

But what if very cheap money has unintended consequences such as asset bubbles and bank failures, and benefits the haves much more than the have-nots of society?

Our guest is financial analyst, journalist, and historian Edward Chancellor, author of the new book, "The Price of Time, The Real Story of Interest". Edward specializes in financial crises— bubbles, crashes and panics. He uses examples from history to challenge conventional wisdom about near-zero interest rates, and walks though his arguments in a relatable way.

"If you reduce the cost of borrowing, you will increase the amount of debt," Edward tells us. "Is it socially just to get large numbers of people into debt that they can't pay, to get them to buy cars they can't afford?"

The idea of charging interest on loans has been around as long as civilization. In ancient Mesopotamia they invented interest before humans learned how to put wheels on carts. Yet throughout history interest or usury has been considered immoral by religious leaders and even philosophers. 

Edward Chancellor offers a robust defense of the need for interest rates. "Interest is the difference in value of something over time," he explains. "You could say it's the exchange rate between the present and the future."

We recorded this episode at the headquarters of The Manhattan Institute in New York. Thank you to Brianna Mangat for recording our conversation and to everyone who made this podcast possible.

Recommendation: Jim is a frequent listener to The Glenn Show, a podcast about race, inequality and economics in the US and throughout the world with Professor Glenn Loury.

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