Jeff Deist

Jeff Deist is an attorney and writer who serves as general counsel at Monetary Metals. He previously spent roughly a decade as president of the Mises Institute and earlier served as chief of staff to Congressman Ron Paul.

He trained in tax law and worked in private equity and mergers and acquisitions before moving into policy, and he ran Ron Paul’s congressional office during the years when the campaign to audit the Federal Reserve turned monetary policy from a specialist subject into a popular one.

He led the Mises Institute from 2013 to 2023, running its conferences, publishing and student programmes, and became one of the more visible voices of the Austrian School in the United States through its lectures and podcasts. His writing concentrates on central banking, the political economy of money and the case for decentralisation, including secession and jurisdictional competition, which is where his work meets the Free Cities argument.

He joined Monetary Metals in 2023, a business that pays interest on gold and treats it as productive capital rather than as an inert store of value.