So Far, the Stock Market is Having the Worst Year Ever

Fed's turned stock market into a "hall of mirrors," Jim Grant says.

These first few days of 2016 have brought with it troubling drops in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. In fact, 2016 so far is the official worst year in stock market history. 

But is this just a consequence of individuals acting spontaneously in the marketplace? Or did the Federal Reserve QE policies cause this downturn? Jim Grant, editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer and the author of The Forgotten Depression: The Crash That Cured Itself, says the Fed has turned the stock market into a "hall of mirrors."

Grant sat down with Reason magazine editor-in-chief Matt Welch in August to discuss the underlying causes of the recent market turbulence, why we don't really "have interest rates anymore," and how the classic jazz song "It's Only a Paper Moon" provides a fitting metaphor for the equities market.