by Philipp Bagus
Mises.org
Last month, Philipp Bagus and Andreas Marquart released their new book Blind Robbery!: How the Fed, Banks, and Government Steal Our Money, now available from FinanzBuch publishers. (See Karl-Friedrich Israel’s full review on mises.org.) We recently spoke with Dr. Bagus about the new book and how certain politically influential groups benefit from our modern monetary system.
Mises Institute: In your new book, you contend that our economic system increases wealth inequality by favoring the wealthy. Can you briefly summarize what you mean by this?
Philipp Bagus: Always when new money is produced, there is a redistribution in favor of those who receive the new money and spend it at the old, still low prices and to the detriment of those who receive the new money later and see prices rise faster than their income. In our fiat money system new money can and is produced at almost zero cost. Those actors, who are in position to receive the new money first benefit. Among them are the government and the financial system.