Money & Finance
413 items and 844 connections. The whole financial system: money, the Fed, M0–M3, inflation, banks, commercial real estate lending, payments, money flows, the world's markets, bonds, stocks, currencies, crises, agencies and fraud. Informational, not investment advice.
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Zoom in to reveal more detail, out for the big picture · click a dot to open it · click a ◆ on a line for how two items connect · +N = hidden details · drag to move.● concept◆ asset or instrument⬢ institution or agency▮ law or rule■ economist or figure◉ crisis or event◎ theory or school▲ fraud or scheme
What money is & money theory
What money is, where it came from, and how economists explain it.
The Fed, money supply & inflation
The central bank, interest rates, money supply (M0–M3) and inflation.
Banks & credit
How banks create credit, and how deposits are protected.
Bonds, rates & Treasuries
Treasuries, yields, the yield curve and how bonds are priced.
Stocks & markets
Owning companies: exchanges, indexes, funds and how markets price risk.
Asset types & alternatives
Cash, real estate, commodities, gold, private funds and more.
Currencies, the dollar & crypto
The dollar's role, exchange rates, other currencies and crypto.
Economics & schools of thought
How economies grow, shrink and trade, and the schools that explain it.
Bubbles, crashes & crises
Bubbles, crashes and the crises that reshaped the rules.
Government agencies & regulation
The agencies that tax, regulate and supervise money.
Fraud, scams & enforcement
How fraud works, famous cases, and how it gets caught.
Commercial real estate lending
How commercial property gets financed: banks, CMBS, non-recourse, swaps, SBA and more.
Payments & money movement
How money actually moves: checks, ACH, wires, cards, letters of credit, D/P and D/A.
Money flows around the world
Where money flows: from the Fed to banks, across borders, and back into Treasuries.
Markets of the world
The world's stock, bond, real estate, commodity and currency markets.
Every item as its own page (413)
What money is & money theory
- Mesopotamian temple loans and silver ledgers
- Coinage, beginning with Lydia's coins about 630 BC
- Song dynasty paper money (jiaozi)
- The gold standard
- Legal tender laws and Civil War greenbacks
- Bimetallism and the 1896 'Cross of Gold' fight
- Quantity theory of money (MV = PQ)
- FDR's gold order and dollar devaluation (1933–34)
- Fiat money: currency backed by law and trust, not metal
- Commodity money: shells, salt, grain, cattle
- Compound interest and the rule of 72
- Interest: the rent paid for using money
- The barter myth vs. credit origins of money
- Three jobs of money: exchange, unit of account, store of value
- What money is: a shared, transferable claim
The Fed, money supply & inflation
- Federal Reserve Act (1913): Board and 12 regional banks
- The Federal Reserve System (the Fed)
- The discount window: lender of last resort
- CPI, PCE and core inflation
- Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC)
- Fed independence and political pressure
- The dual mandate: maximum employment and stable prices
- Paul Volcker and the 1979–82 inflation fight
- Alan Greenspan, Fed chair 1987–2006
- Ben Bernanke, Fed chair 2006–2014
- M3: broad money, no longer published
- Interest on reserve balances (IORB)
- Quantitative easing (QE): buying bonds to push down rates
- The 2% inflation target
- Janet Yellen, Fed chair and Treasury Secretary
- Jerome Powell, Fed chair 2018–2026
- The Fed's balance sheet and quantitative tightening (QT)
- Kevin Warsh, Fed chair since May 2026
- Deflation: falling prices
- Hyperinflation: when a currency collapses
- Inflation: rising prices, shrinking purchasing power
- M0, the monetary base: currency plus bank reserves
- M1: cash and checking deposits (redefined 2020)
- M2: cash, checking, savings and money market funds
- Monetary policy: steering interest rates and credit
- Open market operations
- The federal funds rate
- The money supply: M0, M1, M2 and M3
- Velocity of money
Banks & credit
- Community banks and credit unions
- FDIC deposit insurance (up to $250,000)
- Glass–Steagall Act (1933) and its 1999 repeal
- Mortgages and the 30-year fixed-rate loan
- Basel capital rules (Basel I, II, III)
- Credit scores (FICO) and the credit bureaus
- Fed bank stress tests
- Dodd–Frank Act (2010)
- Reserve requirements (cut to zero in 2020)
- Bank runs: when depositors all want out at once
- Business loans: credit lines, C&I term loans, equipment and ABL
- Commercial banks: taking deposits, making loans
- Consumer credit: credit cards, auto and student loans
- How banks create money: lending and fractional reserves
- Insurance companies: pooling risk and investing premiums
- Investment banks: underwriting, deals and trading
- Leverage: amplifying gains and losses with debt
- Moral hazard: insurance and bailouts encourage risk
- Private credit funds
- Shadow banking: credit outside the banking system
- Syndicated and leveraged loans, and the CLOs that buy them
- The repo market: overnight loans backed by Treasuries
- Too big to fail: systemically important banks
Bonds, rates & Treasuries
- US Treasury securities
- Credit rating agencies: Moody's, S&P and Fitch
- Treasury bills (T-bills)
- Mortgage-backed securities (MBS)
- High-yield 'junk' bonds
- TIPS: inflation-protected Treasuries
- Series I savings bonds
- TreasuryDirect: buying Treasuries directly
- SOFR: the benchmark rate that replaced LIBOR
- Bond funds and bond ETFs
- Bonds: lending money in exchange for interest
- Corporate bonds and credit spreads
- Duration: how sensitive a bond is to rates
- Municipal bonds and tax-free interest
- The 10-year Treasury yield
- The yield curve: interest rates across maturities
- Treasury notes and bonds (2 to 30 years)
- Why bond prices fall when yields rise
- Yield curve inversion as a recession warning
Stocks & markets
- Stocks: owning a slice of a company
- Stock exchanges: NYSE and Nasdaq
- Stock indexes: the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq
- Mutual funds
- The S&P 500 index
- Warren Buffett and value investing
- Brokerage accounts and SIPC protection (up to $500,000)
- Efficient market hypothesis
- Options and other derivatives
- John Bogle and Vanguard
- Index funds and passive investing
- Behavioral finance: how investors really behave
- Exchange-traded funds (ETFs)
- GameStop meme-stock squeeze (2021)
- The AI stock boom and Big Tech concentration
- Bull markets, bear markets and corrections
- Dividends and stock buybacks
- Earnings, market cap and the P/E ratio
- Initial public offerings (IPOs)
- Short selling: betting a stock will fall
Asset types & alternatives
- Futures contracts
- Venture capital
- Hedge funds
- Diversification and asset allocation
- Real estate investment trusts (REITs)
- Cash and money market funds
- Retirement accounts and pension funds: 401(k)s, IRAs, pensions
- Private equity and leveraged buyouts
- Accredited investor rules: who may buy private deals
- Commercial real estate stress (2023–)
- Alternative investments: private funds, art and collectibles
- Asset classes: the menu of investments
- Cap rates: how real estate is priced
- Commodities: oil, metals and crops
- Gold and precious metals as investments
- Home prices and the housing market
- Measuring risk: volatility, drawdown, recovery time
- Real estate as an investment
Currencies, the dollar & crypto
- Bretton Woods agreement (1944)
- IMF and World Bank
- The US dollar as the world's reserve currency
- The Korean won
- Nixon shock: the dollar leaves gold (1971)
- Petrodollar recycling: oil surpluses lent back to the world
- The petrodollar: oil priced in dollars since the 1974 US–Saudi deal
- The euro and the European Central Bank
- Bitcoin
- Cryptocurrency
- Stablecoins: crypto tokens pegged to a currency
- Tether (USDT): the largest dollar stablecoin
- CIPS: China's cross-border yuan payment system (2015)
- Ethereum and smart contracts
- Shanghai INE yuan crude oil futures (2018)
- The petroyuan: pricing and paying for oil in yuan
- USD Coin (USDC) and its issuer, Circle
- China's e-CNY digital yuan
- Project mBridge: shared ledger for central-bank money
- The digital euro (ECB project, earliest about 2029)
- Oil paid in yuan: Russia, Iran and the Saudi talks
- Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act (passed House; not law)
- BRICS payment plans: BRICS Pay and linked national systems
- Spot bitcoin ETFs (2024)
- The false 2024 claim that the petrodollar deal 'expired'
- CLARITY Act: crypto market-structure bill (not yet law)
- Executive order barring a US CBDC (Jan 23, 2025)
- GENIUS Act (2025): the federal law for payment stablecoins
- GENIUS Act reserve rules: 1:1 in cash and short T-bills
- Who may issue payment stablecoins, and who supervises them
- Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs)
- China's yuan (renminbi)
- De-dollarization and BRICS alternatives
- Exchange rates and currency markets
- Financial sanctions and 'weaponizing' the dollar
- Stablecoins as major buyers of Treasury bills
- The digital dollar: stablecoins vs. a Fed-issued CBDC
- The Japanese yen: safe haven and cheap funding currency
Economics & schools of thought
- Adam Smith and The Wealth of Nations (1776)
- Comparative advantage and free trade (Ricardo)
- Marxian economics (Karl Marx, Das Kapital)
- Austrian school (Mises, Hayek)
- Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act (1930)
- GDP: measuring the size of the economy
- Keynesian economics (John Maynard Keynes)
- Creative destruction (Joseph Schumpeter)
- The Phillips curve: inflation vs. unemployment
- Monetarism and Milton Friedman
- Supply-side economics and the Laffer curve
- Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)
- US tariff surge of 2025–26 and the IEEPA ruling
- Business cycles and recessions
- Income and wealth inequality
- Markets, prices, supply and demand
- Productivity: output per hour of work
- Schools of economic thought
- Tariffs and trade wars
- Trade deficits and the current account
- Unemployment and the monthly jobs report
Bubbles, crashes & crises
- Tulip mania (1637): bubble or legend?
- South Sea Bubble (1720)
- Panic of 1907 and J.P. Morgan's rescue
- Weimar Germany hyperinflation (1923)
- The 1929 crash and the Great Depression
- The Great Inflation and 1970s stagflation
- Savings and loan crisis (1980s–90s)
- Black Monday crash (1987)
- Japan's bubble and 'lost decades' (1990–)
- Asian financial crisis and Korea's IMF bailout (1997)
- Long-Term Capital Management collapse (1998)
- Dot-com bubble and bust (2000)
- Subprime mortgages and the housing bubble
- AIG and credit default swaps
- Lehman Brothers bankruptcy (Sept 2008)
- TARP bank bailout (2008)
- The 2008 global financial crisis
- Zimbabwe hyperinflation (2008)
- European debt crisis (2010–12)
- COVID-19 crash and rescue (2020)
- The 2021–23 inflation surge
- Silicon Valley Bank collapse (2023)
- The 2026 Iran-war oil shock and the Fed's return to hikes
- Bubbles, crashes and panics: how crises unfold
- CDOs: repackaged mortgage debt
Government agencies & regulation
- Customs and Border Protection: tariffs at the border
- US Department of the Treasury
- The national debt and federal deficits
- Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the US Mint
- Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
- Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC)
- The debt ceiling
- Securities Act of 1933 and Exchange Act of 1934
- Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
- Social Security Administration (SSA)
- Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the FHFA
- OFAC: Office of Foreign Assets Control
- CMS: the Medicare and Medicaid agency
- Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)
- PBGC: the federal pension insurance agency
- FinCEN: Financial Crimes Enforcement Network
- Interagency CRE concentration guidance (2006): 100% and 300% tests
- FINRA: the brokers' self-regulator
- Interagency CRE loan workout policy statement (2009, updated 2023)
- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)
- One Big Beautiful Bill Act (2025)
- Capital gains and dividend taxes
- Fiscal policy: Congress, taxes and spending
- The US financial regulators
Fraud, scams & enforcement
- Charles Ponzi's postal coupon scheme (1920)
- Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money-laundering rules
- Ivan Boesky and the 1980s insider-trading cases
- Enron's accounting fraud (2001)
- Sarbanes–Oxley Act (2002)
- Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme (exposed 2008)
- Offshore tax evasion and FATCA/FBAR foreign-account reporting
- Whistleblower award programs (SEC, IRS, CFTC)
- LIBOR rate-rigging scandal
- Pandemic aid fraud: PPP and unemployment
- Pig-butchering crypto romance scams
- Corporate Transparency Act and LLC ownership reporting
- FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried (2022)
- Business email compromise: fake wire instructions
- Check fraud: mail theft, 'check washing' and Positive Pay
- Fraud enforcers: DOJ, FBI and the FTC
- Insider trading
- Money laundering: making dirty money look clean
- Ponzi schemes: paying old investors with new money
- Pump-and-dump schemes
- Scams on individuals: impostors and elder fraud
- Securities fraud: lying to investors and rigging markets
Commercial real estate lending
- SBA 7(a) loans: the all-purpose small-business loan (to $5 million)
- SBA 504 loans: a bank first lien plus a CDC second lien
- Interest-rate swaps: trading floating payments for fixed
- REMIC: the tax-free trust that holds a CMBS loan pool
- ISDA Master Agreement: the standard swap contract
- Agency apartment loans: Fannie Mae DUS and Freddie Mac Optigo
- CMBS: conduit loans pooled into commercial mortgage bonds
- C-PACE: green-upgrade loans repaid on the property-tax bill
- CMBS delinquency waves (2009–12, 2020 and 2023–26)
- SBA COVID Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL)
- Jamison Properties' CMBS office defaults in Los Angeles (2024–26)
- The CRE maturity wall and maturity defaults
- 'Bad-boy' carve-outs: when a non-recourse loan springs recourse
- 'Extend and pretend': rolling loans over instead of foreclosing
- Archetype: a bank refinance of a suburban office building
- B-piece buyers: the first-loss investors in a CMBS deal
- Balloon payments, amortization and interest-only periods
- Bank balance-sheet loans from community and regional banks
- Bridge loans: short-term, floating-rate transition financing
- California's one-action and anti-deficiency rules
- CMBS master and special servicers
- Commercial foreclosure: trustee's sales and judicial foreclosure
- Commercial real estate loans: how income property is financed
- Common equity: the sponsor's first-loss, all-upside slice
- Construction loans and mini-perms
- CRE debt funds and mortgage REITs: the non-bank lenders
- Credit-tenant-lease (CTL) financing: lending on the tenant's credit
- Debt service coverage ratio (DSCR)
- Deed in lieu of foreclosure: handing back the keys
- Defeasance: swapping the building's collateral for Treasuries
- Fixed vs. floating rates on property loans
- Government-backed property loans: agency, HUD and SBA
- Ground leases and leasehold financing
- Hard-money loans: fast, costly, asset-based private loans
- HUD/FHA apartment loans: 221(d)(4) and 223(f)
- Interest-rate caps on floating-rate loans
- Life insurance company loans: low leverage, long fixed rates
- Loan covenants, cash sweeps and lockboxes
- Loan modifications and forbearance agreements
- Loan-to-value (LTV) ratio
- Mezzanine loans secured by the owner's LLC interests
- Other ways to finance a building: seller notes, leasebacks, PACE
- Personal guarantees: full, limited and burn-off
- Preferred equity: paid after the lenders, before the sponsor
- Prepayment penalties: step-down, yield maintenance, defeasance
- Receivership: a court-appointed receiver runs the property
- Recourse vs. non-recourse loans: is the owner personally liable?
- Sale-leasebacks: selling the building and renting it back
- Seller financing: the seller carries back a note
- Senior debt: the first-lien mortgage, paid first
- Single-purpose entity (SPE) borrowers: one building, one LLC
- Swap breakage: the cost (or refund) of unwinding a swap early
- Swap loans: a floating bank loan fixed with an interest-rate swap
- The capital stack: who gets paid first in a property deal
- Underwriting a property loan: DSCR, LTV and debt yield
- When CRE loans go bad: workouts, foreclosure and receivership
- Yield maintenance: paying the lender's lost interest
Payments & money movement
- Fedwire Funds Service: the Fed's wire system
- Incoterms: who pays freight and when risk passes
- Credit and debit card payments: how a swipe or tap gets paid
- Uniform Commercial Code rules for checks, wires and LCs
- BankAmericard: the 1958 Fresno launch that became Visa
- Card networks: Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover
- CHIPS: the big banks' private dollar wire system
- SWIFT: the bank messaging network
- ACH: Nacha's batch network for payroll, rent and bills
- Chargebacks and dispute rights (Reg Z and Reg E)
- P2P apps: Zelle, Venmo, PayPal and Cash App
- Check 21 Act (2003): check images replace paper
- Payment processors and acquirers: Stripe, Square, Fiserv
- Durbin Amendment (2010): caps on debit card swipe fees
- Mobile wallets and tap-to-pay: Apple Pay and Google Pay
- Instant payments: 24/7 bank transfers that settle in seconds
- RTP network from The Clearing House (2017)
- FedNow: the Fed's instant payment service (2023)
- Bills of exchange (drafts) and banker's acceptances
- Bills of lading: the shipping document that controls the goods
- Cash payments: Federal Reserve notes and coins
- Cashier's checks, certified checks and money orders
- Checks: how a personal or business check clears
- Commercial letters of credit (UCP 600) and confirmed LCs
- Correspondent banking: nostro and vostro accounts
- Cross-border payments: moving money between countries
- Debit cards and PIN networks (Star, NYCE, Pulse)
- Documentary collections: banks swap shipping papers for payment
- Documents against acceptance (D/A): sign a draft, pay later
- Documents against payment (D/P): pay first, then get the goods
- Escrow: a neutral holder releases money when terms are met
- Factoring and forfaiting: selling receivables for cash now
- Interchange 'swipe' fees merchants pay on card sales
- Payment fraud: check, wire, card and app scams
- Payment rails: how money moves from account to account
- Remittances and the 1% US remittance tax (2026)
- Standby letters of credit and bank guarantees
- Trade finance and payment guarantees: getting paid safely
- Wire transfers: same-day, final and hard to reverse
Money flows around the world
- Sovereign wealth funds: nations' investment portfolios
- Flow of funds: the Fed's Z.1 map of who owes what to whom
- Eurodollars: the offshore dollar banking system
- Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF)
- Singapore's GIC and Temasek
- Norway's Government Pension Fund Global (the oil fund)
- The 'global savings glut': trade surpluses recycled into US assets
- Fed dollar swap lines and the FIMA repo facility
- Dollar plumbing: bank reserves, the TGA and the Fed's reverse repo
- China's shrinking Treasury pile: real selling or hidden in custody?
- The Fed's overnight reverse repo facility (ON RRP)
- The yen carry-trade unwind and the Aug 5, 2024 crash
- Balance of payments: current account vs. financial account
- Central banks' FX reserves: about $13 trillion, ~57% in dollars
- Foreign direct investment (FDI) vs. portfolio flows
- Foreign holders of US Treasuries (TIC data): Japan, UK, China
- Global money flows: how capital moves between countries
- Hot money and capital flight: money that flees in a panic
- Sectoral balances: one sector's deficit is another's surplus
- The carry trade: borrowing in low-rate currencies to buy high yields
- Treasury General Account (TGA): the government's account at the Fed
Markets of the world
- Deutsche Börse: the Frankfurt exchange and the DAX
- London Stock Exchange (LSEG) and the FTSE 100
- Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX): banks, energy and mining
- India's exchanges: NSE and BSE (Nifty 50 and Sensex)
- London Metal Exchange and the 2022 nickel squeeze
- Tokyo Stock Exchange (Japan Exchange Group)
- Hong Kong Exchanges (HKEX) and the Hang Seng index
- The London gold market and the LBMA Gold Price
- Nikkei 225: from the 1989 peak to new records in 2024
- Eurobonds: international bonds sold offshore since 1963
- Clearing houses: DTCC, the Options Clearing Corp. and CME Clearing
- KOSPI and KOSDAQ: Korea's stock indexes and the 'Korea discount'
- WTI and Brent: the oil price benchmarks on NYMEX and ICE
- Emerging-market debt: dollar bonds, local bonds and Brady bonds
- China's stock markets: the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges
- Shanghai Composite index and China's 2015 stock crash
- Euronext: the Amsterdam, Paris and Milan exchanges
- Korea Exchange (KRX): Korea's stock and futures market
- CME Group: Chicago's futures giant (CME, CBOT, NYMEX)
- Saudi Exchange (Tadawul) and the 2019 Aramco IPO
- The US office market: remote work and record vacancy
- Treasury market stress: the 2020 'dash for cash' and 2025 selloff
- China's property crisis and Evergrande's collapse (2021–)
- The 2022 UK gilt crisis: the mini-budget and pension LDI funds
- Data centers: the AI-driven building boom
- BIS FX survey: about $9.6 trillion traded a day (April 2025)
- Apartment (multifamily) real estate
- China's bond market, the world's second largest
- Commercial real estate markets: office, industrial, retail, apartments
- CRE capital markets: deal volume and the cap-rate cycle
- Dark pools and off-exchange trading (about half of US volume)
- European government bonds: German Bunds, French OATs, Italian BTPs
- Global real estate: about $393 trillion, the largest store of wealth
- Hotels: real estate that reprices every night (RevPAR)
- Industrial real estate: warehouses, ports and e-commerce
- Japanese government bonds (JGBs) after yield-curve control
- Los Angeles office market (about 25% vacant)
- Market makers, high-speed traders and payment for order flow
- OTC derivatives: about $850 trillion notional (2025)
- Retail real estate: struggling malls, resilient strip centers
- World bond markets: about $160 trillion of debt (2025)
- World stock markets: about $158 trillion, 44% of it in the US