Trillion Dollar Triage: How Jay Powell and the Fed Battled a President and a Pandemic---and Prevented Economic Disaster

The U.S. economic expansion became the longest on record, but one month later, the public health battle against a deadly virus pushed the economy into a medically induced coma. Over 22 million American jobs were lost, and the stock market experienced the largest daily drops ever. Trillion Dollar Triage goes inside the Federal Reserve to chronicle how its chairman, Jay Powell, unleashed an unprecedented monetary barrage to keep the economy on life support.

Format: Hardback
Length: 352 pages
Publication date: 31 March 2022
Publisher: Little, Brown & Company

The United States experienced the longest economic expansion on record by February 2020, with unemployment reaching historic lows and stock markets reaching new heights. However, one month later, the country was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to a dramatic shutdown of businesses and a loss of over 22 million jobs. The economic uncertainty caused by the pandemic led to unprecedented daily drops in the stock market.

In response, the Federal Reserve took unprecedented measures to stabilize the economy. Trillion Dollar Triage, written by Wall Street Journal chief economics correspondent Nick Timiraos, delves into the tense meetings, late-night phone calls, and crucial video conferences that took place behind the largest and swiftest U.S. economic policy response since World War II. The book goes inside the Federal Reserve, one of the country's most important and least understood institutions, to chronicle how its chairman, Jay Powell, unleashed an unprecedented monetary barrage to keep the economy on life support.

With the bleeding stemmed, the Fed faced a new challenge: how to nurture a recovery without unleashing an inflation-fueling, bubble-blowing money bomb? Trillion Dollar Triage is a definitive and gripping history of the creative and unprecedented battle to shield the American economy from the twin threats of a public health disaster and economic crisis. The book will have a lasting impact on economic theory and policy.

Weight: 300g
ISBN-13: 9780316272810