Money: How the Destruction of the Dollar Threatens the Global Economy – and What We Can Do About It


Book Description

Why a return to sound money is our only hope for a true recovery and a healthy global economy “Money clearly illustrates that sound money is an essential foundation for a free and prosperous society and that the Federal Reserve’s current policies are a greater threat to the economic future of the U.S. than government deficit spending. This is an important book well worth reading.” -- John A. Allison, President and CEO, Cato Institute, and author of the New York Times bestselling The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure “Few topics today are as misunderstood as the subject of money. Steve Forbes understands money better than most heads of state do, and in this provocative book he shares his vast knowledge and gives us sensible and time-tested recommendations for stopping future financial meltdowns.” -- Lawrence Kudlow, CNBC Senior Contributor “Economic and monetary policies can be difficult to master for even the savviest politicians. Money effectively communicates these complexities into a cohesive argument for economic recovery and preventing a new financial crisis. Steve Forbes and Elizabeth Ames deliver a gripping read and an intriguing viewpoint on how to get our economy back on track.” --Greta Van Susteren, host of On the Record, Fox News Channel Few topics are as misunderstood today as the subject of money. Since the U.S. abandoned a gold-linked dollar more than four decades ago, the world’s governments have slid into a dangerous ignorance of the fundamental monetary principles that guided the world’s most successful economies for centuries. Today’s wrong-headed monetary policies are now setting the stage for a new global economic and social catastrophe that could rival the recent financial crisis and even the horrors of the 1930s. Coauthored by Steve Forbes, one of the world’s leading experts on finance, Money shows you why that doesn’t need to happen--and how to prevent it. After reading this entertaining and hugely well-informed book, you will know more about money than most people in the highest government positions today. Money explains why a return to sound money is absolutely essential if the U.S. and other nations are ever to overcome today’s problems. Stable money, Steve Forbes and Elizabeth Ames argue, is the only way to a true recovery and a stable and prosperous economy. Today’s system of fluctuating “fiat” money, in which governments manipulate the value of the dollar and other currencies, has been responsible for the biggest economic failures of recent decades, including the 2008 financial crisis, from whose effects we continue to suffer. The Obama/Bernanke/Yellen Federal Reserve and its unstable dollar policies are accelerating our course toward disaster, the authors show, in numerous convincing examples. In Money, Forbes and Ames answer these crucial questions: What is the difference between money and value? What is real wealth? How does sound money contribute to a well-functioning society? How have our money policy errors led to the current problems in global financial markets? What can we do now to reestablish the strength of the dollar and other currencies? The authors argue that the most effective way to return to a sound money policy and a healthy economy is to put the dollar back on a gold standard, and they outline the several different forms a gold standard could take. They also share invaluable suggestions for how to preserve our wealth and where to invest our money. Money is essential reading for anyone interested in this crucially important subject.




Currency Wars


Book Description

In 1971, President Nixon imposed national price controls and took the United States off the gold standard, an extreme measure intended to end an ongoing currency war that had destroyed faith in the U.S. dollar. Today we are engaged in a new currency war, and this time the consequences will be far worse than those that confronted Nixon. Currency wars are one of the most destructive and feared outcomes in international economics. At best, they offer the sorry spectacle of countries' stealing growth from their trading partners. At worst, they degenerate into sequential bouts of inflation, recession, retaliation, and sometimes actual violence. Left unchecked, the next currency war could lead to a crisis worse than the panic of 2008. Currency wars have happened before-twice in the last century alone-and they always end badly. Time and again, paper currencies have collapsed, assets have been frozen, gold has been confiscated, and capital controls have been imposed. And the next crash is overdue. Recent headlines about the debasement of the dollar, bailouts in Greece and Ireland, and Chinese currency manipulation are all indicators of the growing conflict. As James Rickards argues in Currency Wars, this is more than just a concern for economists and investors. The United States is facing serious threats to its national security, from clandestine gold purchases by China to the hidden agendas of sovereign wealth funds. Greater than any single threat is the very real danger of the collapse of the dollar itself. Baffling to many observers is the rank failure of economists to foresee or prevent the economic catastrophes of recent years. Not only have their theories failed to prevent calamity, they are making the currency wars worse. The U. S. Federal Reserve has engaged in the greatest gamble in the history of finance, a sustained effort to stimulate the economy by printing money on a trillion-dollar scale. Its solutions present hidden new dangers while resolving none of the current dilemmas. While the outcome of the new currency war is not yet certain, some version of the worst-case scenario is almost inevitable if U.S. and world economic leaders fail to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors. Rickards untangles the web of failed paradigms, wishful thinking, and arrogance driving current public policy and points the way toward a more informed and effective course of action.




Reviving America: How Repealing Obamacare, Replacing the Tax Code and Reforming The Fed will Restore Hope and Prosperity


Book Description

Conservative icon Steve Forbes returns with his most powerful and provocative ideas yet The United States has been through one of the most tumultuous decades in recent history. Polls show people on both sides of the ideological divide believe that the country has gone off track. If something isn’t done quickly, Americans face a bleak future—continuing decline and disarray in a world that grows ever more dangerous. Steve Forbes, two-time candidate for the GOP presidential nomination and Forbes Media Chairman, explains how today’s malaise has been caused by years of Obama’s destructive policies, a broken tax system, and the Federal Reserve’s Soviet-style controls over credit and money. The problems are challenging. But Forbes tells us that, with the right policies, the country can bounce back faster than people think. In this compelling and much-needed book, he sets forth a three-part plan to revive America. Patient-Driven Healthcare: The problem with healthcare, Forbes says, is that Big Government, health insurance companies, and employers are in control, not you, the patient. The key to getting high-quality, affordable healthcare is increasing competition and choice, and putting patients in charge. Enact a Flat Tax: Today’s complex, corrupt tax code must be scrapped. The best answer is a simple Flat Tax. Forbes shows how this very bold reform would free America from the IRS and unleash an unprecedented wave of prosperity. A Sound Dollar as Good as Gold: With its ever-fluctuating “fiat” dollar, the Federal Reserve has blocked a real recovery and is the prime cause of today’s stagnant, crisis-ridden economy. The answer? Take the dollar out of the hands of the Washington politicians by returning to a monetary system with the value of the dollar linked to gold. A clear and vital guide, Reviving America shows how the United States can recover the optimism and entrepreneurial dynamism that made it the greatest nation in history. These are 21st century solutions—not the failed ideas of the recent past. Forbes offers specific ideas and plans, not generalities and bromides, and is challenging policy makers to do the same. Steve Forbes is the coauthor of Money, the New York Times bestseller Power Ambition Glory, and the Wall Street Journal bestseller How Capitalism Will Save Us. Forbes is the Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes Media, which published Forbes magazine, with a circulation of nearly 1 million readers. Combined with Forbes Asia and Forbes Europe, and the company's licensee editions, the magazine reaches close to 6 million global readers. Forbes.com reaches almost 70 million unique monthly visitors. Elizabeth Ames has co-authored three previous books with Steve Forbes: Money: How The Destruction of the Dollar Threatens The Global Economy—And What We Can Do About It; Freedom Manifesto: Why Free Markets Are Moral and Big Government Isn’t; and the Wall Street Journal bestseller, How Capitalism Will Save Us: Why Free People and Free Markets Are The Best Answer In Today’s Economy.




The Cost of Free Money


Book Description

A penetrating account of how unchecked capital mobility is damaging international cooperation, polarizing the economic landscape, and ultimately reshaping the global order "An expert on global financial and monetary systems . . . lucidly describes the failings of the international monetary 'non-system' that emerged after the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in the 1970s."--Martin Wolf, Financial Times "Best Books of 2020: Economics" When it comes to the afflictions of the global economy, almost everyone--and especially Donald Trump--is quick to point the finger of blame at the state of international trade. But what about unconstrained capital flows? Unfettered capital has resulted in a string of financial and economic crises that have left our political systems strained and dialogue corroded. The once perceived benefits of openness have been cast to the wayside and the cracks in the global order can no longer be ignored. Paola Subacchi argues that international cooperation and interdependence have become crippled. Regional restrictions will soon strengthen and a multipolar order will take shape, leading to a distinctly transformed economic landscape in which China challenges the dominance of the US dollar. Combining history, analysis, and prediction, this book provides penetrating insight into the challenges facing the international economic order.




Demise of the Dollar


Book Description

A devastatingly incisive look at the devaluation of the American dollar and how it impacts you In the newly revised third edition of Demise of the Dollar: From the Bailouts to the Pandemic and Beyond, New York Times and international bestselling author Addison Wiggin delivers yet another timely and insightful account of the devaluation of the American dollar. Fully updated to consider the events of the last ten years—including the COVID-19 pandemic—the book contains nuanced discussions of historic inflation, interest rates and the Federal Reserve, the impact the Euro has had since its introduction, the rise of China prior to the pandemic, cryptocurrencies and the United States’ consumer debt addiction. It also demonstrates how all these factors, and more, are affected by the American dollar’s role as the world’s “reserve currency”. You’ll learn what a weakened American dollar means for your portfolio and how you can best arrange your finances to protect against global macroeconomic risks. You’ll find: Strategies for making your portfolio more resilient against economic shocks, downturns, and crises Explorations of what increasing levels of US consumer debt mean for your investments, and for the world’s largest economics Examinations of how foreign countries have come to control the economic fate of the United States via the issuance of debt A fascinating account of one of the most important trends in American economics in the last hundred years, Demise of the Dollar offers incisive observations about the factors driving the world’s contemporary economies and specific and strategic guidance on how to structure your portfolio to survive, and even thrive, in a new financial environment.




The New Depression


Book Description

Why the global recession is in danger of becoming another Great Depression, and how we can stop it When the United States stopped backing dollars with gold in 1968, the nature of money changed. All previous constraints on money and credit creation were removed and a new economic paradigm took shape. Economic growth ceased to be driven by capital accumulation and investment as it had been since before the Industrial Revolution. Instead, credit creation and consumption began to drive the economic dynamic. In The New Depression: The Breakdown of the Paper Money Economy, Richard Duncan introduces an analytical framework, The Quantity Theory of Credit, that explains all aspects of the calamity now unfolding: its causes, the rationale for the government's policy response to the crisis, what is likely to happen next, and how those developments will affect asset prices and investment portfolios. In his previous book, The Dollar Crisis (2003), Duncan explained why a severe global economic crisis was inevitable given the flaws in the post-Bretton Woods international monetary system, and now he's back to explain what's next. The economic system that emerged following the abandonment of sound money requires credit growth to survive. Yet the private sector can bear no additional debt and the government's creditworthiness is deteriorating rapidly. Should total credit begin to contract significantly, this New Depression will become a New Great Depression, with disastrous economic and geopolitical consequences. That outcome is not inevitable, and this book describes what must be done to prevent it. Presents a fascinating look inside the financial crisis and how the New Depression is poised to become a New Great Depression Introduces a new theoretical construct, The Quantity Theory of Credit, that is the key to understanding not only the developments that led to the crisis, but also to understanding how events will play out in the years ahead Offers unique insights from the man who predicted the global economic breakdown Alarming but essential reading, The New Depression explains why the global economy is teetering on the brink of falling into a deep and protracted depression, and how we can restore stability.




The Future of the Dollar


Book Description

For half a century, the United States has garnered substantial political and economic benefits as a result of the dollar's de facto role as a global currency. In recent years, however, the dollar's preponderant position in world markets has come under challenge. The dollar has been more volatile than ever against foreign currencies, and various nations have switched to non-dollar instruments in their transactions. China and the Arab Gulf states continue to hold massive amounts of U.S. government obligations, in effect subsidizing U.S. current account deficits, and those holdings are a point of potential vulnerability for American policy. What is the future of the U.S. dollar as an international currency? Will predictions of its demise end up just as inaccurate as those that have accompanied major international financial crises since the early 1970s? Analysts disagree, often profoundly, in their answers to these questions. In The Future of the Dollar, leading scholars of dollar's international role bring multidisciplinary perspectives and a range of contrasting predictions to the question of the dollar's future. This timely book provides readers with a clear sense of why such disagreements exist and it outlines a variety of future scenarios and the possible political implications for the United States and the world.




The Demise of the Dollar... and Why It's Great For Your Investments


Book Description

As the dollar continues to weaken against other currencies, it is increasingly clear that this event will have a significant impact on investors and consumers around the world. Never before has the "reserve currency of the world" been so burdened by debt or suffered from such serious structural imbalances. The Demise of the Dollar . . . And Why It’s Great for Your Investments examines the reasons for the dollar’s current slide and offers an up-close look at the Federal Reserve’s attempts to "manage" the dollar’s value. Filled with in-depth insights, wry wit, and sound advice, this intriguing text offers an inside glimpse of the reality of today’s dollar and its impact on the world’s economies as well as readers’ personal portfolios.




The Death of Money


Book Description

"Ever wonder why today's corporate leaders can't seem to plan for the long term? Why government can't control inflation? Why the stock market is more volatile than ever? Why interest rates rise and fall like the tides? Why economic forecasts never seem to be right? In The Death of Money, Joel Kurtzman, an economist and business columnist for The New York Times, brilliantly and convincingly argues that economic stability and a rapid rate of growth, once America's hallmarks, have been lost because the fundamental nature of money has changed." "Money - in the traditional sense - died two decades ago with a single stroke of Richard Nixon's presidential pen. What followed was twenty years of a new economic disorder that began with soaring oil, gold, and real estate prices and continued with an unprecedented consumption binge by government agencies and the citizenry alike. In the twenty years of chaos, we've seen the savings and loan industry collapse, the banking system become weaker, eclipsed by the economy of finance, and an entirely new global medium of exchange created that Kurtzman calls "megabyte money."" "Most economists, Kurtzman argues, still don't know what - or how - it all happened." "Megabyte money is different from anything that has preceded it - and from the money jingling in your pocket or purse. It is part of an intricate and fragile electronic system of truly global dimensions and of amazing complexity. It is a nonstop, seven-day-a-week, 24-hour network that links tens of thousands of computers in places as lofty as the Federal Reserve and the Tokyo Stock Exchange and as lowly as the automated gasoline pump that accepts credit cards." "Megabyte money has created an entirely new global economy, one which, Kurtzman warns, is still largely unregulated, where government agencies, including the Federal Reserve and the Treasury, have ceded much power to the world's bankers, speculators, corporate treasurers, financiers, and computer programmers." "In The Death of Money, Kurtzman vividly explains how this new megabyte economy enables brokers to electronically bundle up your home mortgage with dozens of others, convert them into jumbo securities like a bond, and sell those securities to investors in Germany or Japan. In the new megabyte economy, Nobel Prize-winning equations are programmed into the computers at mutual fund companies, and mathematicians, physicists, and even rocket scientists are replacing the stock pickers of the past." "In the megabyte economy, money is nothing more than the "1's" and "0's" of the computer's code. Moving instantly along electronic highways, $1.9 trillion changes hands each day in New York alone. Information - even wrong or incomplete information - instantly affects prices around the world." "The death of money has created a strange new world most people have little knowledge of. It is a world that is far more volatile and chaotic than anything that has preceded it. Though this new world economic order evolved without a plan, Kurtzman warns that efficient new mechanisms must now be put into place to bring the economy under control. If we do so, he says, the vast, productive resources of our nation can again serve our needs."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved




Popular Economics


Book Description

“John Tamny is a one-man antidote to economic obfuscation and mystification.” —George Will, Nationally Syndicated Columnist “In spirit, Tamny does for economics what the Gutenberg printing press did for the Bible, making a previously inaccessible subject open to all. Equally important, he does to economists what Toto did to the Wizard of Oz: pulling aside the curtain to expose the fraud that has become modern economics.” —Steve Forbes, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, Forbes Media “Ignore John Tamny’s easy to read Popular Economics at your own moral peril. It’s as close to spiritual as you get in this realm—a better tutorial than any econ text.” - Ken Fisher, Founder & CEO, Fisher Investments “John’s book is many things. It’s a great way to learn economics, it’s a very strong case for economic liberty, and it is an epic myth-buster. I will be giving it out to friends, of all viewpoints, for a long, long time.” - Cliff Asness, Managing Principal, AQR Capital ECONOMICS 101 In Popular Economics: What the Rolling Stones, Downton Abbey, and LeBron James Can Teach You About Economics (Regnery Publishing; April 13, 2015; $27.99) Tamny translates the so-called difficult and intimidating subject of economics into plain language, revealing that there is nothing mysterious about finance, commerce, and budgets. In fact, we are all microeconomists in our daily lives. “Economics is easy, and its lessons are all around us,” says Tamny. “But Americans have allowed the so-called ‘experts’ to convince them they can’t understand, much less grow the economy. Happily, economic growth is simple, too. If you can understand the four basic elements of economic growth—taxes, regulation, trade, and money— prosperity will explode.” Much like Freakonomics, Tamny uses pop culture and engaging stories to illustrate how understanding our economy is common sense—just look no further than the movies we enjoy, the sports we watch, and what we do every day. In Popular Economics, you’ll discover: How Paris Hilton and the Dallas Cowboys help illustrate good and bad tax policy How Facebook and Monday Night Football demonstrate the debilitating effect of antitrust regulation How the simple act of cooking chicken wings reveals why the “floating dollar” is a recipe for disaster Why Downton Abbey and ESPN are evidence that the U.S. should bulldoze its tax code