But when I recently supplemented a classroom discussion with the actual framework, I fell down a rabbit hole so disturbing that Bob Lee Swagger's horrified line from Shooter, "What kind of sick mind would think of something like this?" (this is the TV version of the original), has been looping in my head ever since.

I knew these changes existed, but I had never fully grasped the perverse incentives they unleashed. Even assuming the best of intentions, the outcomes explain the devastation of Main Street and the staggering concentration of wealth and power on K and Wall Streets.

To understand this perversity, the evolution of modern central banking must be re-examined and retaught. What emerges is a turbo-charged Cantillon effect that drives today's asset bubbles, crushes inflation-squeezed households, and creates the bizarre disconnect between soaring financial markets and the bleak job prospects facing my brother-in-law and his fellow recent college graduates.

What advocates once promised about government monetary intervention now bears little resemblance to the neutral, stabilizing force still taught in textbooks. To understand why stocks and home prices soar while middle- and lower-income households are crushed by inflation, we must consult the long-dead but brilliant Cantillon. Doing so reveals how Fisher's equation of exchange misleads by concealing what matters most: who receives the new money first.

Since late 2022, M2 (black dots) has followed a remarkably stable quadratic trend (red curve). This path began midway through the Fed's aggressive tightening cycle, triggered by inflation topping 9 percent and producing the first sustained M2 decline since the 1930s. Even though the Fed has been a net seller of securities since then, M2 growth turned positive in early 2023 and has accelerated along that red curve. It is now running near 5 percent year over year and could reach 9 percent by late 2026 if the curve holds. Against this backdrop, claims from President Trump, his allies, and Wall Street that the Fed is "too tight" reveal a deep misunderstanding of how monetary policy operates under the new banking framework.