Topic: Jim Rickards' New Book "The Death of Money", Review (Read 14014 times)

Private companies invested in Greek debt.  It should have ended there but it became something political and bailouts make countries liable and so populations of one country are now being taxed to pay for the debt of other countries.  I dont think thats what european union was supposed to be about, they exceeded their remit and without democratic involvement.

It really isnt about failure of capitalism because its normal for bad debts to occur, you lend money and you lose it and thats why anyone deserves profits as its never for sure.  The negative comes from trying to deny the failure and use force to move markets, it causes the reinforcement of the mistake and probable repetition.  
 You are right, freedom is not the negative because people always act free so only the stupid or evil try to stop it for some gain.  I dont think anyone gains from this except face of politics

Private companies invested in Greek debt.  It should have ended there but it became something political and bailouts make countries liable and so populations of one country are now being taxed to pay for the debt of other countries.  I dont think thats what european union was supposed to be about, they exceeded their remit and without democratic involvement.

It really isnt about failure of capitalism because its normal for bad debts to occur, you lend money and you lose it and thats why anyone deserves profits as its never for sure.  The negative comes from trying to deny the failure and use force to move markets, it causes the reinforcement of the mistake and probable repetition.  
 You are right, freedom is not the negative because people always act free so only the stupid or evil try to stop it for some gain.  I dont think anyone gains from this except face of politics

But the thing is, in the Southern countries, everybody is pretty much doing what they want. People go about their lives less stressed, and that's a good thing, if they want to do it that way. Just don't let the other countries pay for it.

Mostly it just needs lower taxes and lower spending ideally.    That largely comes from default on its debt I think.    The reason is lower taxes are more often paid then higher taxes, just because its easier to do so will actually mean more people pay the tax.

It fits into the scales of economy type model.  A 99% tax will be paid at far less then a fifth the rate at which people would pay for 20% taxes.
It is not linear more likely exponential and that is true even if you have the army patrolling the streets taking taxes, the feasibility of higher taxes is just not there no matter how much force government applies it cannot will into being what is incorrect.
     This happens way too often in peoples line of thinking, 'government can do anything'   Nope, no they can and do often fail and just muddy and mire the streets with regulational crap of no use to anyone.

  Its possible to criminalise a population and part of what does is tax, classic communism would be to suppress individual will and capitalism should free them; not for idealist reasons but just because it actually works better.
  Corruption is a mislabel, a river is not corrupt if misdirected uphill and it does not proceed as told

Greece at least additionally needs/needed stricter tax enforcement and measures against corruption

So I just finished Rickards' brand-new book.

One thing people forget is the basic issue we have today.

None of the so called educated class actually do anything that is "productive".

Shuffling paper around is what the financial industry do and is being rewarded with billion of dollars.

This shouldn't being norm for a functioning society. Of course the country currency will go down the sink if everyone in the country is doing it.

So I just finished Rickards' brand-new book. It's an ok read, but I also feel like I didn't learn too many new things.

On one hand, 90% of the book makes a lot of sense and there are some smart thoughts to be found in it. On the other hand, if you are well-informed about the current economic disaster (as a lot of posters on this forum are), you will not profit that much from reading it. Also, be adviced that some basic economic understanding is a precondition for reading this book: It certainly brought me to the edge of my economic understanding. All in all, if you know about the breakdown of the monetary system, save some time by reading this post and a couple of Rickards' interviews on the web and leave out the book!

The first half of the book, while a good read, is really relatively superfluous for anybody who knows a bit about the topic. The first chapter is about insider trading of terrorist associates before 9/11, and is really interesting, but has no connection to the topic of the book. Overall, the author really loves to hear himself talk, and that's a problem.

The book continues with chapters about the fragility of todays trading mechanisms, the blunders of the Fed and the region chapters: One about China, Europe and the Emerging Markets each. The ones about China and EM contain some interesting stuff, but the historical and theoretical explanations are way too waste IMO.

The second half is more interesting:There is a chapter on US debt, then one on the IMF (it was the most interesting chapter for me, but it didn't enlighten me in extreme ways either), a chapter on gold that told me almost nothing new (I know a lot about gold manipulation though), and the end of the book is about conclusions and the breakdown of the system. Oh, and Rickards gives advice on how to invest your money in times like these - he elaborates on almost 3 whole pages...

The book does also contain some stuff that I certainly don't believe in: Above all, this concerns the chapter about Europe, "The New German Reich". God, that chapter is one single piece of hogwash! Rickards seems very fond of Europe, fair enough. His outlook on Europe is extremely positive though, and the whole chapter reads like the stuff I see and hear on Main Stream Media every day: Europe is through the crises, brighter times are about to come, etc... As a European, I can only assume that he is too far away to grasp reality here.

Rickards completely ignores devastating numbers from the European economy, which have only been getting worse. Quote: "By late 2012, the European sovereign debt and bank crises was largely contained" (p. 128). Excuse me!?? He enthusiastically writes about a treaty between EU members that "requires signatories to have budget deficits of less than 3% of GDP when their debt-to-GDP ratio is under 60 percent." More rigid requirements are valid for counties with higher ratios - but he completely ignores all the regulations of the past about debt, which have been broken by most EU members without any consequences. So where is this guy living (in the US, I know...)?

According to him, "Greece needs only more flexible work rules, lower unit labor costs, and new capital." This stuff makes me laugh. Greece at least additionally needs/needed stricter tax enforcement and measures against corruption - but also, the Greek and the German economy, for example, just don't make a good fit! The same easy money policy Rickards condemns in the US, is totally ok for him in Europe. And finally, the most outrageous claim of the book is the claim that Germany (edit: the Eurozone) has "real positive interest rates" (p. 127)! What the fuck!?

But enough of that chapter.

Other unusual things Rickards claims are that he believes the official inflation numbers and doesn't believe the US gold is missing. Instead, he believes Germany never wanted its gold back when claiming repatriation, but just had political pressure inside of Germany to make a claim. In fact, Germany wants to keep its gold at the Fed to have it used for ongoing manipulation purposes. Doesn't make any sense to me.

An intruiging thought is that the goal of the international community is to let China accumulate enough gold so it is on par with the other main players in terms of gold-to-GDP-ratio. The others want China equal so it will be able to participate in the building of the new monetary world order. That order will be in gold and/or SDRs (Special Drawing Rights).

I'm glad we have economists like Rickards, smart thinkers outside of the system, but I also think unless you know very little about the topic, you don't have to read that book.

Thanks, I have never heard of that one. Just checked it out on Amazon.

Yes, that was one of the most interesting parts of the book.

The problem with this theory is, it assumes all the countries really have the amount of gold they claim to have, and this, in my book, is definitely not the case. There are a lot of indicators pointing in the other direction, I can't believe for a second Western countries have the gold they claim to have.

Just name the book "The death of fiat".

Money will never die, it will change change form.

I have heard about this book the death of money and appreciate the time you took to write a review about it
Saved me some reading myself which I can put towards other books
(Kind of want a book thread)
An interesting Book I read recently is The Prize by Daniel Yergin which goes into oil politics and economics so would recommend that to others looking for a good read