Riveting novel. Oh and it's economic history.

Would you listen to The Creature from Jekyll Island again? Why?

Yeah. G. Edward Griffin somehow found a way to make the history of the Federal Reserve interesting. I learned a lot. I am realizing I have so much more to learn about finance and econ, and I am grateful to an author who can keep me wanting to listen to anything about them. He does a great job making this important knowledge not only easy, but enjoyable to digest.

Any additional comments?

The book has almost a detective feel to it, as it tells the story of a crime that was and is committed against the American people. The story feel is the best part. And learning the concepts doesn't feel too much like learning, but more like hearing a crime story unfold. So serious thanks to this author for a very important book. If it would've been written with a little more character development just to draw you in more it would've been even better in my opinion.

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52 people found this helpful

Lost confidence in author

I wanted to listen to a book about the Federal Reserve given the current economic situation. I could tell by the title how the author felt about The Fed. However, the book has a lot of good reviews and is extremely popular. The author even alludes to his negative feelings about the Federal Reserve in the first few sentences. That’s fine - everyone has their own opinion. At least he is up front with his. What I couldn’t handle was the description of the banking system. I have been a commercial banker for 18 years. The author lacks understanding, or, even worse, misrepresents basic banking fundamentals such as how banks make money, how a balance sheet works, how lending works, how deposits work, what happens when loans go sideways, how bank profitability works, etc. I was able to push through the first two chapters because my goal was to learn more and the Federal Reserve. However, once he butchered how the FDIC works he lost all credibility in my mind. I just didn’t have faith in anything else he would describe in the remaining chapters. Not a book I can recommend or spend any more time on. I’ll search for another book on the topic. I just wish I wouldn’t have wasted an Audible credit on this.

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50 people found this helpful

A book that makes you think, although I’m not sure the way the author intended.

While the book starts off strong after a few chapters things begin to go off the rails. Events that support the authors claims are examined in excruciating detail while those that oppose it are quickly disregarded or hand-waved away.

The author has a tenuous, at best, grasp of history that he uses to spin a compelling but flawed narrative. While the book provides a good starting point I suggest all readers approach it with skepticism and do their own research into its claims.

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41 people found this helpful

Download and Listen ASAP

Where does The Creature from Jekyll Island rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Great book, Scary, but great. If you have children you must read this book. If live in the USA, you must read this book. If you care about any person on this earth, you must read this book.

What did you like best about this story?

I liked that this is the truth. The story line resonates in your guts, you know what is said is true.

What about Mark Bramhall’s performance did you like?

Good Narrator.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The book grabbed me from the first page and I couldn't put it down.

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35 people found this helpful

Prepare to be amazed

If you could sum up The Creature from Jekyll Island in three words, what would they be?

Eyeopening, shocking, disquieting

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Creature from Jekyll Island?

The explanation of how banking and the economy actually work.

What does Mark Bramhall bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Mark's narration brought the concepts and information presented into clear focus.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

They really are out to get you.

Any additional comments?

This book has been on a shelf in my home for over 10 years and during that time I manged to read maybe the first 3 chapters. I'm so glad I found it on Audible and that it has been updated with information about the world's current economic situation. I've learned more about banking and the economy from this book than I did from my college economics and finance classes. Well worth the investment.

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32 people found this helpful

An extensive, but not balanced, lesson

I was disappointed in this book. When I purchased this book, I had a basic understanding of how the Federal Reserve works, but I wanted to fill in the gaps in my understanding and learn about its founding. Alas this book did not help much in either regard.

The book begins to tell a well-crafted story about the trip to Jekyll Island, but after a few minutes the story ends before the participants actually reach the Island. And it doesn't follow that with a story of what happened after that meeting. Only if the reader has the patience to reach the later chapters of the book will he, unexpectedly, find some of that story. Instead the book spends the rest of the chapter and the bulk of the book apparently trying to bash the "The Creature" with innuendo, straw man beating, sarcasm and guilt by association.

The book does share quite a bit of information about anomalies and problems related to our banks, leaders, and financial system over the past two centuries, but very little of it has to do with the Federal Reserve. Ex. It vigorously points out that the FDIC apparently creates a moral hazard (and probably should be fixed). That's a great point, but the FDIC is not the Federal Reserve. -- It fails to describe where all the bailout money from the 2008 housing crisis went other than "to the banks". It doesn't mention the role of the defaulting homeowners other than to hint at them being victims. It doesn't cover what happened to the money the banks lent the home owners and that was not paid back when those home owners had to default on their loans. -- The book doesn't provide a history of financial systems being stable and non-recessionary before fiat- and fractional-reserve currency. -- It also justly points out that bank accounts really should be overtly advertised as time accounts instead of appearing to be demand accounts. That's a good point. But then it doesn't point out that banks are, by letting customers receive interest AND (not or) also withdraw their balances on demand, providing a better product for the customer than the banks reasonably can+should. ("Better" as long as one ignores the bank failures that seem to eventually occur as a result.) -- It blames the US departure from the gold standard on banks, and doesn't cover the implications of there already being more dollars in circulation than there was gold to cover them. That, and the government's role in that, needs to be covered if the author wants to blame the problem on the bankers of that time. -- The book makes an interesting point that if money is created only by lending it out for interest, there never will be enough money in circulation to pay the principal+interest off, but then the book seems to deny that conclusion by nebulously saying that the interest can be paid off with the value of labor. There is some logic to that statement, but it seems critically inconsistent with so many other statements in the book. -- These are just a sampling of the apparently important, yet incomplete, points found in the book. It is the perspective of the reviewer that the reader would have been better served if more of the book had been spent clarifying points like these and less on bashing.

Bottom line, you should not depend on this book to provide a balanced tutorial on the Federal Reserve. Nevertheless, it does provide one perspective and a lot of interesting facts and stories that the reader can treat as a list of topics to research on his own to get a more complete and balanced perspective.

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31 people found this helpful

Do you really know what your Politians are doing?

Any additional comments?

If you want to get an idea where this country is headed, you've got to listen to this. So many puzzle pieces about the political big hitters and policies just fall right into place.. This is not aimed at a particular political party.

I'm only half way through, and am planning a 2nd listen so I can understand more of the intricacies of the monetary world.

Please inform yourself in the name of humanity.

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23 people found this helpful

This book could have been very useful.

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

This book could have been very useful - opinions and facts are too closely blurred. The author's own opinions weave in and out of every part of the book, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone looking to gain an unbiased opinion of the Fed.

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21 people found this helpful

too much conspiracy theories.

The book started out good. I thought there might be something to all this. I truly wanted to understand the workings of our financial system. I was disappointed when all this conspirators started to come up, over hundreds of years. that was just too much. The jumping from one year to the next, to the past and back to the future didn't help either. it got convoluted, too much.

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Absolutely Brilliant! How the powerful enslave

If you could sum up The Creature from Jekyll Island in three words, what would they be?

Revealing, Sickening, Empowering

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

I especially appreciated the authors perspective with regard to the political and economic forces leading up to the civil war, as well as sheding light on the powers and more base motives facing Lincoln as the war wore on. this book brings a great deal of insight to many of the events that have shaped our county. He brings to light how the many facets and influences of monetary control have worked against America since its inception. For the history buff's... I guarantee at least 2 to 3 Ah ha moments. This book really stitched together key historic events of the last two hundred years with each cause and effect. Demonstrating time and again the destructive and enslaving paterns used by powerful monetary forces to literally control the "Free" people of the world

Any additional comments?

The Narration was excellent. I often felt as though I was traveling by train through history, being enlightened as my traveling companion Mr. Griffin explained to my understanding, in some cases for the first time the passing historical landscape.

Despite the size of the book... I didn't want it to end.

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19 people found this helpful