The Director of the Cato Institute's Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives gives an eye-opening, 200-year history of today’s most powerful economic institution.This episode is sponsored by Crypto.com, Bitstamp and Nexo.io.Today on the Brief:Better news in the jobless claims this weekA new bitcoin adoption cycle?Checking on LebanonOur main conversation is with Dr. George Selgin. Dr. Selgin is a Senior Fellow and director of the Cato Institute's Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives as well as Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Georgia. In this eye-opening conversation, he and NLW go deep on the history, present and future of central banks, including:Why the Scottish and Canadian banking systems in the 19th century show that central banks aren’t a prerequisite for stabilityWhy the U.S. “free banking” system wasn’t free at allWhy the instability in the late 19th century U.S. banking system was caused by regulation, not the lack of a Federal ReserveWhy the Fed’s first decades were a disasterWhy the Fed gets more power when it underperforms The problems with the Fed’s response to 2008What lessons the Fed could have learned (but didn’t) between the Great Financial Crisis and COVID-19 Find our guest online:Website: Alt-M.orgTwitter: @GeorgeSelginSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.