Broken MoneyLyn Alden
Broken Money
Why Our Financial System Is Failing Us and How We Can Make It Better
by Lyn Alden · first published 2023
27mentions
15recommended by
17HN commenters
2023–2026first – last mentioned
88% recommend12% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Clear, historical account of how modern money and monetary policy came to be, including the Nixon shock, framing money as a technology. Suits laypeople wanting a mental model of inflation, credit, and Bitcoin.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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Reasonable to whom? (Hint: Not the impoverished, and there are a lot of those) Or simply a twisted rationalization so some can sleep better at night? I would recommend you read "Broken Money" by Lyn Alden. There's are some serious systemic thumbs on the "globalization" scale, and those thumbs are the same outfits spewing the narrative you're parrotting. Get the book. We can resume this in…
on “Inside North Korea's Forced Labor Program” ↗Read Lyn Alden's "Broken Money" you'll get a very different perspective. There's not much benevolence in the current petrodollar system. It effectively enslaves smaller economies to decisions of The Fed; then add in the World Bank…
on “How China Is Churning Out EVs Faster Than Everyone Else” ↗I’m currently reading Broken Money by Lyn Alden and it has given me a much improved perspective about why things like this are the way they are as a consequence of history and monetary policy. Very interesting.
on “Ask HN: Doom and Gloom but financial markets doing well?” ↗…debt in some amount and GDP in some amount, and saying the ratio of those two is all we need to understand and not worry. btw, for bonus points, read the first three or four chapters from Lyn Alden's "Broken Money". https://www.lynalden.com/broken-money/
on “Ask HN: Are you worried about the US dollar collapse?” ↗…improvements in technology, productivity, efficiency, globalization, etc. why are prices going up at all? Who benefits from a system that runs complete counter to logic? I recently finished Lyn Alden's "Broken Money" and highly recommend it, especially the first four sections. https://www.lynalden.com/broken-money/
on “A viral $22 burrito explains inflation in the US” ↗I recently read "Broken Money" by Lyn Alden and recommend it. The chapters on what is money, the history of money, and so on, were very educational. One of my key takeaways was: The economic system and the sociopolitical system sits…
on “Finding the Money – There's another side to the national debt” ↗+1 for Lyn Alden. Her book, "Broken Money", significantly impacted me as a layman to economics (which is more pseudoscience than science).
on “U.S. Government Now Spends More on Debt Interest than National Defense” ↗…a broken financial system (i.e. a system being artificially pumped up with cheap credit). Spot on. You're not alone. For a more thorough and clinical review of how we're f'ed and why see Lyn Alden's "Broken Money". To your point, ppl are fond to talk about the economy. That's a distraction. It's a false god. Fact: the economic system and the sociopolitical system both side on a foundation. That foundation is…
on “Priced out of home ownership” ↗(in no particular order) https://www.lynalden.com/broken-money/ (Broken Money by Lyn Alden; ISBN13: 9798988666318) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36204894-chernobyl (Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe by Serhii Plokhy; ISBN13: 9781541617094) https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/kim-stanley-robinso...…
on “Ask HN: What did you read recently? Preferably long form, non-tech” ↗In all seriousness, recommend reading Broken Money by Lyn Alden. There are parts that go off the rails but the narrative about money-as-technology is solid and is very helpful for mental model purposes. There are ponzi schemes everywhere but the view…
on “Bitcoin has made a new all-time high price” ↗"Broken Money" by Lyn Alden is a good engineering background. Then, for example, read one of many macro articles on fiscal dominance. You do not have to read Lyn first, but without reading it on modern financial systems…
on “Ask HN: Predictions for 2025?” ↗I mean, the whole point of the site is to highlight what the Nixon shock left in its wake since 1971. It truly was special in that regard. I'd highly recommend reading the book "Broken Money" by Lyn Alden for understanding the dynamics of what played out.
on “WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)” ↗Your comment indicates that you fundamentally misunderstand BTC. I recommend reading Broken Money by Lyn Alden.
on “El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender” ↗…not do things people did not explicitly ask for) and progressivists (who want to push the society along the path they see as the best one). There are more features of money (highly recommend reading "Broken Money" by Lyn Alden)
on “El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender” ↗The book Broken Money by Lyn Alden describes this well (economy not social media), it was all concepts I vaguely knew and understood but having it laid out so clearly helped.
on “Against the Tyranny of Opinionated Ignorance” ↗