Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis

The short story is that I think this book is excellent. I consider it required reading -- and in fact re-reading as well -- for investors who rely on an informed macroeconomic perspective to guide their decision-making, and for those interested in the science of monetary economics.Below are some passages from Currency Wars that I thought were especially insightful. They put forth prospective answers to many key questions that many traders will want to consider.How Does the Global Economic Crisis Get Resolved?"The new crisis will likely begin in the currency markets and spread quickly to stocks, bonds, and commodities. When the dollar collapses, the dollar-denominated markets will collapse too. Panic will quickly spread throughout the world. As a result, another US president, possibly Obama, will take to the airwaves and cyberspace to announce a radical plan of intervention to save the dollar from complete collapse, invoking legal authority already in place today. This new plan may even involve a return to the gold standard. If gold is used, it will be at a dramatically higher price in order ot support the bloated money supply with the fixed quantity of gold available. Americans who had invested in gold earlier will be confronted with a 90% "windfall profits" tax on their newfound wealth, imposed in the name of fairness. European and Japanese gold presently stored in New York will be confiscated and converted to use in the ervice of the New Dollar Policy. No doubt the Europeans and Japanese will be given receipts for their former gold, convertible into New Dollars at a new, higher price.Alternatively, the president may eschew a return to gold and us an array of capital controls and global IMF money creation to reliquify and stabilize the situation.This isn't far-fetched speculation. It has all happened before. Time and again, paper currencies have collapsed, assets have been frozen, gold has been confiscated, and capital controls have been imposed."Is Widespread Military Conflict Likely?"A conventional military confrontation with the united States seems highly unlikely because of the United States' ability to suppress and ultimately decimate the opposing side. As a result, rival nations and transnational actors such as jihadists have increasingly developed capabilities in unconventional warfare, which can include cyberwarfare, biological or chemical weapons, other weapons of mass destruction or now, in the most unexpected twist of all, financial weapons...the costs of a financial war might be far less than the costs of an arms race and possibly be much more effective at undermining US power than a military confrontation."How Do Currency Wars -- When Economies Compete to Devalue their Currencies -- Start?"Currency wars begin in an atmosphere of insufficient internal growth. The country that starts down this road typically finds itself with high unemployment, low or declining growth, a weak banking sector, and deteriorating public finances. In these circumstances, it is difficult to generate growth through purely internal means and the promotion of exports through a devalued currency becomes the growth engine of last resort."Do Currency Devaluations Help an Economy?"A country that cheapens its currency may make final sales look cheaper when viewed from abroad but may hurt itself as more of its cheap currency is needed to purchase various inputs."Have Currency Wars Happened Before? What Was the Outcome?"Currency War I began in spectacular fashion in 1921 in the shadow of World War I and wound down to an inconclusive end in 1936. In round after round of devaluation and default, the major economies of the world raced to the bottom, causing massive trade disruption, lost output and wealth destruction along the way. The volatile and self-defeating nature of the international monetary system during that period makes Currency War I the ultimate cautionary tale for today as the world again confronts the challenge of massive unpayable debt."How does China play into the Euro crisis?"China has a vital interest in a strong Euro. The European Union surpasses the United States as China's largest trading partner. China's interest in supporting the Euro is as great or greater than its interest in maintaining the yuan peg against the dollar."How is China affecting the gold market?"Between 2004 and 2009, China secretly doubled its official holdings of gold. China used one of its sovereign wealth funds, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), to purchase gold covertly from dealers around the world. Since SAFE is not the same as the Chinese central bank, these purchases were off the books from the central bank's perspective."What are the Possible Outcomes for the end of the Reign of the US Dollar?"Taking a range of views from the conventional to the cutting-edge, we can foresee four outcomes in the prospect for the dollar -- call them The Four Horsement of the Dollar Apocalypse. In order of disruptive potential from smallest to greatest, they are: multiple reserve currencies, Special Drawing Rights, gold, and chaos."What are Special Drawing Rights (SDR)?"The SDR is world money, controlled by the IMF, backed by nothing, and printed at will. Once the IMF issues an SDR, it sits comfortably in the reserve accounts of the recipient like any other reserve currency."

I learned a lot!

This is one of Rickards' better books. It is a good intro to a concept rarely discussed; that is world monetary history in terms of the 'war-like' interaction of nations using currency devaluations to gain an upper hand. It's also a bit more than that as he uses his background in trading and economics to theorize a variety of scenarios that could threaten the US in currency markets, gold, derivative markets and others. I found the reading to be attainable and not too dry for the lay reader.This all being said, the weaknesses of the book really lie in sections where Rickards goes beyond reporting history to promulgating ideas of a coming collapse, much of which is based on some assumptions he makes about the importance of gold and how nations will respond to the slightest hiccup in confidence in fiat currencies like the US dollar. For example, the opening chapters are actually pretty interesting as the author lets us in on the first ever "financial war games" exercise sponsored by the US government (he got to play a major role due to research he'd done on systematic weaknesses in financial markets). The funny thing is the author tells of how he basically rigs the exercise to go in the direction he wants by commiserating with a friend over dinner (who is assigned to an opposing team) to push for a coordinated interest in launching a new gold-backed currency. The plan initially backfires and is almost not allowed by moderators until Rickards rallies support, then sells all of his team's gold to the opponent in a sort of self-sacrifice effort to make his friend's plan work after all! If anything, it shows how fragile world economics are at present where a strategic blunder by one nation could turn into absolute turmoil if other nations also make small mistakes in response.The meat of the book is in the three sections on Currency War 1, 2 and 3. It is interesting to get a perspective also on the G20 conferences and responses to the latest financial crisis. His later chapters on the IMF and their use of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) is also enlightening and a good intro to learn more on this topic that might grow considerably in importance. I think the chapter on the hypothetical of returning to a gold standard and its implications should be taken with a grain of salt. What I did appreciate though was his response to Ben Bernanke's research on the role of gold in worsening the Great Depression. This is an important discussion he left out of his book The New Case for Gold. All in all, its a good quick read and I think you'll enjoy it.

I read this book several years ago and decided to reread it again in 2025 with US Dollar getting weaker due to continuous printing of money by the Fed. Jim Rickards clearly and accurately outlines the chaos of the dollar in today's world due to this printing.There exists rational solutions to the financial problems of the USA, but presently there's no rational thought amongst the elites in this country, nor the world, to correct this difficiency. For the middle class and the poor, look out below...