Finance & Fury Podcast

Welcome to Finance and Fury, The Furious Friday Edition.  Today is an interesting episode - Central Banks and Wars – Often wouldn’t think of these two together – What is the purpose of a central bank? Financial stability, a lender of last resort, to smooth out the cycle of boom and bust? Not their original purpose – Why did nations first start central banks? To finance the material needs of the nation-state in times of war Central banks ramped up the funding capacity of wars – the long-term costs could be covered Britain had shown that its central bank chartered in the 1690s was necessary to finance a crown bent on war France too, under the revolutionaries and Napoleon, had set up their institution to ease the way for aggressive war credits. Central banks came into force early – Older nations like Germany - 1872, France – 1800, England – 1690 – ramped up after 1900s many more coming online USA – Federal reserve 1913 in USA, Swiss – Swiss National Bank 1906, Russian – 1922 – The Gosbank   First – In