The mystery of banking
by Murray N. Rothbard · first published 1983
88% recommend13% neutral
Why HN recommends it
A short, easy-to-read introduction to how banking and money creation work, with a step-by-step explanation of fractional reserve banking and central banking. It serves as a clear starting point for newcomers.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…the bottom 99.9% by stealing their purchasing power by printing new money. If you would like to read a thorough argument about how fractional reserve banks and the Federal Reserve are scams, read "The Mystery of Banking" by Murray Rothbard. Google it and you will see it is available for free at mises.org. For some reason this subject is very polarized and I get downvoted whenever I explain this. Don't downvote me just…
on “Who Rules America: An Investment Manager's View on the Top 1%” ↗Get some conflicting ideas. Two great, short books are The Mystery of Banking by Rothbard (available for free here: https://mises.org/library/mystery-banking) and Economics in One Lesson by Hazlitt (free here: https://fee.org/resources/economics-in-one-lesson/). They both conflict…
on “Ask HN: Book recommendations for understanding financial systems?” ↗I felt the same way when I discovered bitcoin last year. Here are some books that I read that helped: * "End the Fed" by Ron Paul * "Economics in One Lesson" by Henry Hazlitt * "The Mystery of Banking" by Murray Rothbard * "What has government done with our money?" by Murray Rothbard * "Debt: The First 5000 Years" by David Graeber
on “Internal FBI risk assessment of Bitcoin network [pdf]” ↗I liked "The mystery of banking" by Rothbard, available here: http://mises.org/mysteryofbanking/mysteryofbanking.pdf It's very well written, but it's not unbiased (Rothbard is a libertarian), so I would encourage you to read other…
on “Ask HK: Understanding money” ↗> I finally broke down and included my "Man, Economy, and State" by Murray N. Rothbard Too dense for me, reading pace was too slow. It's good, but reading it is hard work. I'd recommend "Mystery of Banking" first, which is smaller in scope, easy to read, very informative. Free here: http://mises.org/books/mysteryofbanking.pdf
on “Hayek's Road to Serfdom #1 on Amazon Today” ↗…Federal Reserve is a pretty centralized banking system. To your point, however, the US has had prosperous period of its history with free (I.e. no central/federal control) banking. See Rothbard's "The Mystery of Banking."
on “The Mighty Fallen: Argentina and the Great Depression” ↗The Mystery of Banking, Murray N. Rothbard explains the essential issues in a step-by-step fashion. Can be freely downloaded from https://mises.org/library/mystery-banking
on “What to read to understand central banking” ↗Read Rothbart's Mystery of Banking, https://mises.org/library/mystery-banking. Or Mises' Human Action.
on “Bitcoin Is a Hideous Monstrosity Made Out of Computers and Greed” ↗Thanks for the link. I read "The Mystery of Banking"[0] recently and understand more or less how it works. I realize that it's not the most neutral source but I haven't found any of the other side's arguments very convincing either (including this Bank…
on “$Roku filed a Form 8-K revealing that $487M stuck at SVB (25% of cash)” ↗