Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crises

Written by James Richards

Narrated by Walter Dixon

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ascent Audio
• Release date: Dec 5, 2011
• ISBN: 9781596593466

Reviews for Currency Wars

[K Sterling · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A detailed historical account of currency wars that is worth a read for those interested in international finance and national security. Unfortunately, the author writes in a meandering way that includes tangential and sometimes unnecessary information. The book's thesis could have been conveyed in far less pages. Overall, good but not great .

[musicformovies · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Explores the currency valuations and their relationship to trade deficits and import / exports; especially applied to the States and China. Although published in 2011, the material is still relevant - especially in the exploration of past financial crisis such the financial Panic of 2008 and the Great Depression. It explores the Classical Gold Standard prior to Word War I, the Gold Exchange Standard during the Intra-War years (1920s), the Bretton Woods system post World War II, and the current Fiat standard post Nixon's 1971 Gold shock. Although Cryptocurrency was just coming into existence, and thus not covered, one can certainly see how it might fit into the broader discussion of a new global currency. Mr. Rickards also covers the IMF, the World Bank, and SDRs. Still a recommended read in the 2020s.

[paul_s-289480 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

What could've been an interesting book degrades into a very one sided argument for using gold as backing for currencies. Doesn't even attempt to show the the other side of the argument. At the end it complains that gold has been unfairly blamed for policy mistakes in the past that didn't rely on gold and then later proposes policy fixes that in no way require gold to be implemented. The killer line however is saying that gold is not a commodity but a universal store of value.

[katesherrod · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is the scariest damn book I read since Jeff Sharlet's THE FAMILY. No wait, scarier than that.

[everfresh1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I found this book uneven. I liked very convincing historical perspective (some facts that I didn't know about). I was bored in the beginning by currency war simulation description - seems like totally useless exercise and a waste of taxpayers money. I was skeptical about some generalizations of financial systems provided by author. I was totally convinced by his description of what the future hold. I was annoyed by some obvious biases in author's description of some government intervention in the past - not all was wrong. Overall, it's a very useful book that everybody should read, despite its shortcomings. I will definitely be looking at Fed's activities in a different light now.