Truman Show

Ever since I seriously got interested in history, I’ve believed that in order to understand how the world truly works, one needs to look under the hood—at how its financial system operates. By and large, history books miss this crucial aspect of the human story, probably because it’s too technical and requires expertise to grasp. But I’ve always been curious about how the world really works.

Some 10 or 15 years ago, I came across a book published in the 1950s by the Fed called Modern Money Mechanics. The book lays out in great detail the process of money creation—how the Fed creates and destroys money. In other words, it explains how the Fed controls the money supply. College economics textbooks follow the Fed’s template when teaching students about money creation and monetary management.

With that in mind, I read the Fed’s publication carefully and worked through its lengthy examples and accounting spreadsheets. I put in good, honest work and came away with what I thought was a solid understanding of the system. Or so I believed.

Then, a few years later, I stumbled upon a book titled “Where Does Money Come From” by Richard Werner—a German economist renowned in Japan, who writes fluently in Japanese and is widely credited with coining the term “quantitative easing.”

I decided to read it to round out my understanding with more up-to-date information.  Feeling confident in my grasp of the system, I was blindsided when I read Werner’s Where Does Money Come From, which turned my understanding upside down. As I worked through it, I found myself muttering: What is this guy talking about? That’s NOT how this works—has he not read the Fed’s publication?

To simplify greatly, the gist of what Werner was saying is that the Fed’s role in money creation is actually quite small. Wait—what? He explained that the vast majority of money is created by commercial banks out of thin air not the Fed. The Fed has some influence over the process, but not nearly as much as commonly believed. Werner argues that commercial banks create money by issuing loans, effectively generating money ‘out of thin air,’ while the Fed’s role is limited to setting reserve requirements and interest rates

This was almost the exact opposite of what the Fed’s publication described—the Fed as the sovereign controller of the money supply.

So what’s going on? Why would Japan’s most notable economist—a man whose ideas shaped the U.S. response to the 2008 financial crisis—contradict the narrative laid out by the Fed? Where is the truth?

I started digging. I found two books on money creation by two renowned (and deceased) economists: John Kenneth Galbraith’s Money and Murray Rothbard’s The Mystery of Banking. What I discovered in their work didn’t align with the Fed’s version either.

Galbraith, in Money, argues that the financial system’s complexity obscures its true workings, noting:

“The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is the one used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it.”

Rothbard goes further, calling the banking system a “criminal cartel” and detailing how historical legal changes in England enabled banks to create money through lending. Both economists, despite their differing ideologies, aligned with Werner’s view that commercial banks, not the Fed, drive most money creation.

Both economists—though from vastly different schools of thought—were broadly aligned with Werner and not with the Fed’s account.

The next book I found was Central Banking 101 by Joseph Wang, a former Fed insider. He lays out how modern central banking works in clear, accessible language. Unsurprisingly, his description is also aligned with Werner’s.

So before me was compelling evidence of a possible “Truman world”—where perhaps the most powerful institution on Earth tells us how money works, while a handful of professionals quietly insist that the reality is quite different. (Incidentally, Werner has suggested he faced pressure from powerful institutions (CIA), while Rothbard’s outspoken critiques led some to label him a radical and an “enemy of the state.”

Personally, reading Galbraith, Rothbard, and Wang convinced me that Werner is right. But I wasn’t about to run around declaring that we live in a Truman Show—most people would dismiss me as a crank.

Until now, that is.

Tucker Carlson recently interviewed Werner. So I no longer have to worry about being labeled a crank—I can just point to the interview. Tucker Carlson’s interview with Werner, viewed by millions, brings these complex ideas to a mainstream audience with clarity and depth. If Tucker and Werner are cranks, I’m perfectly happy to be in their company.

If you’re looking for a mind-bending red-pill experience, this is the interview to watch. It runs for 2 hours and 40 minutes and dives deep into technical detail, but even if some concepts are unclear, the larger message still comes through.

One last thought: Werner says banks can be—and often are—a force for good. You simply can’t have prosperity without them. And I mostly agree. But they must be re-directed toward that purpose.

Mervyn King, former head of the Bank of England who steered it through the 2008 crisis, makes a similar case in his book The End of Alchemy. He stops short of saying the system is built on a lie—central bankers don’t really get to say that—but the sentiment is plain between the lines. And the title of his book all but screams it.

Enjoy the interview if you choose to watch:

🎥 Richard Werner Exposes the Evils of the Fed & the Link Between Banking, War, and the CIA