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

Anyone have a pdf link where I can download Jim Rickards' book?

Latest from Rickards:

@JamesGRickards: EU tells banks to ban #Bitcoin on "manipulation" fears http://t.co/ec9Kd5G0XK. Like there's no manipulation in FX, Libor, gold, silver......

The narrative on bitcoin is definitely changing. Slowly but surely. The gold bugs will always love their Au but now accept that btc is a step forward and credible.

Creditors gain from the bailout.

Absolutely.

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

Latest from Rickards is this;

http://www.darientimes.com/32801/rickards-connecting-dots-in-the-global-mosaic/


tldr:

- US turning to Shi'ite supporting Iran to repel Saudi backed Sunni ISIS = Saudi notices less need for petrodollar, direct trade with China.

- Russia sits back in Ukraine, doing shit when attention shifts.

- Turkey may be drawn in to regional conflict due to Kurdish Nth Iraq, Jordan shelters ISIS and has US bases.

- Gold up, oil up.

I would add Bitcoin up.

On the topic of Special Drawing Rights, there was an interesting article on KWN today:

http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2014/6/6_Former_Greek_PM_Admits_To_Talks_On_New_Reserve_Currency.html

I believe what you wrote is true as well. Greeks seem to be taxed into oblivion right now.

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

Thank you for the review.  Well-written.

It has been reported today that China will be pricing the gold used on its new Shanghai exchange in Yuan and not dollars.

The movement away from the USD continues....

You remind me one book I read "Smart people should build things".
The guy complains that the intellectual are sucked by the financial market, when they should build businesses.

Smart people goes where capital is, so he complains the system should not give so much power to the financial industry.

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.

I very much enjoyed Rickards' first book, "Currency Wars." This was a very good sequel, although in my opinion it doesn't rise to the same level.
The premise of the book is fairly straight forward: The current monetary system is unsustainable and it's bound to collapse. It all can be boiled down to a few reasons: debt, structural problems in the world economy, derivatives, and out-of-control increases in the money supply. I suspect that a lot of readers will not agree with everything Rickards has to say, but I also suspect that a lot of readers will learn something new by reading this thought-provoking book.

This book is a tour de force of the global financial system as it is today. The abrupt jumps of topic between chapters were a bit disconcerting at first, but worked to keep the book to a manageable length despite its expansive scope.

I would recommend it highly although I messed up a bit their and meant the Quest which is the update on the Prize
I mixed the two up since I was watching the youtube video series on The Prize and read the Book on the Quest
Part 5 of an 8 part series
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIJxBrHcSUo

Yep, ive read the theories but i really have no idea whether they are true. I'd say many less stable countries have traditionally kept their reserves in the US / UK as a form of protection. Apart from Venezuela who actually shipped the gold back, I'd say much other claims to get it back may be political posturing.

The slightly out there theory that I have a passing interest in is the WW2 loot theory that posits that there is actually much more gold in the world than is currently accepted.

The Japanese looted CHina / Manchuria and all of Sth East Asia prior and during the war, stealing thousands and thousands of tonnes of gold, jewels, precious arts etc. For the most part they shipped it back to Japan until the US blocked supply routes in late 43/44. From there on in, they buried it in massive PoW made underground complexes (that were housed under structures they believed the Allies would not bomb - churches, hospitals etc). We're talking thousands if not hundreds of thousands of generational gold hand me downs.

Anyways, the forerunners to the CIA (ISS) got wind of this after the war and spent the next 20 years recovering it all, in a kind of mad race with other Japanese, Ferdinand Marcos etc.

The loot, known as The Black Eagle Trust or the M Fund, was used to finance the fight against corruption across the world in the post war era and eventually fell into the hands of the Big Banks like Citibank who were chased through the courts for years and years in order to return the loot to many of its owners. Citibank eluded and dodged until the claimants died in many cases or used other nefarious means to avoid giving the massive interest bearing accounts back.

Proof of the size and scale of this operation are plentiful, with one such example being the biggest civil case in history where an amatuer Filipino treasure hunter named Rogelio Roxas was awarded a 22 BILIION dollar settlement against the Marcos estate for his torture and the confiscation of a Golden Buddha he discovered near a hospital in Manilla in the 70's.

Here's a brief summary of the Roxas case http://www.tseatc.com/jury.html

Yes, that's 22 BILLION in 1997 dollars.

True, that didn't even occur to me. But as "The Death of Fiat", this book won't be marketable, ha ha! Plus, the car industry might sue you.

Gold is money, even if Ben claims otherwise.

Just name the book "The death of fiat".

Money will never die, it will change change form.

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

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

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.

I've finished the book, thought it was another good read. Some was a bit rehashed from Currency Wars, but overall good stuff.

Interesting part on the implementation of SDR's.

Rickards view is that the major nations are colluding to allow China to purchase enough gold to give them all a relative equal balance in gold reserves. When this occurs, the move away from top weighting to the US dollar will begin. He writes that the move towards SDR's, higher weighting for the Yuan and less for the USD has been acknowledged by the US Fed & Treasury. This goes part the way to explaining gold market swings and its decline in recent times.

Further, this is only the plan and works only if things remain smooth. Plenty of scope for increases in inflation, deflation and some kind of panic / collapse to bring this transition on in a hurry. The plan is, and always has been, for inflation, but whether it can be controlled without society rebelling (wiping out savings) or deflation winning the battle first is the $64k question.

I think that Rickards has generally been a sober kind of commentator. Quite measured and not prone to some of the more far out scenario predictions. In DoM however, I think he is very bearish, saying that there is no way this will end well and all signs point to some kind of chaos. He even brings up the oft cited SWAT / tanks / bullets etc being amassed by US counties /states as a harbinger of what is to come.

I hope you mean the book and not my quote, ha ha!

Where do you live? What do you think about the economy of your country?

This part in particular is pretty ridiculous I think.

I haven't read that one.

So read currency wars instead?

From my interpretation of the book, inflation is 'working' via negative real interest rates, eg, interest rates on savings are at 0.5% and inflation is at 1.5%, therefore savers are losing 1%.

also from my reading, the QE induced inflation is being exported to other countries as are pressured to lower their currencies against the dollar thereby, as say with japan, making energy imports more expensive. Other examples given were Brazil, Iran.

Please lets not go down the 'put up data or else' route; im paraphrasing the book.

True, no worries. Thanks for the good discussion.



Where is the QE-caused inflation, or really inflation at all? If you don't believe official stats then use MIT Billion Price Index, or something else. Unless you try to come up with somewhat technical excuses, it's just not there. Please provide data.

Im just going past halfway of the book. So far, another good read. I was probably more gripped by currency wars as much of the content was new to me back then.

But anyway, I really liked the few pages discussing negative rates. The true bastardry comes in the harmless sounding terms 'QE' and Op Twist and all these other easy to digest soundbite names; at heart they are deliberate policies designed to sipher your money via inflation.

This is actually quite sickening. While destroying savers and the wealth of the regular joe was previously done by bank laws on deposit rates, it now just does it a little more subtly.

And therein lies a damn good reason to be in bitcoin.

We could write thousands of pages of discussion about this, but I try not to spend my time like this, sorry. I was already a bit pissed at myself for making that last post so long.

You are of another opinion, and that's cool. Your last link was interesting, hadn't seen that one before.

Google translation from Chinese:
When Bitcoin currency can replace the soft sister ah!



Indeed, my friend...!

You are talking like a total academic there...

My opinion is only considered radical in the real world, but on this board, I think a lot of posters would agree.

Nothing against academics who have actually worked in economy. What I was talking about are the pure academics, who prove again and again they can just draw pretty graphs on a blackboard and tell you about theory beautifully, but they can't manage anything in reality.

Examples:

We have had 5,5 years of unprecedented money creation and ridiculously low interest rates. The US money supply is many times as high as a couple of years ago (just google "US money supply" images for graphs), yet the economy is tanking (it is, don't believe what the mainstream media is telling you). But the FED keeps on doing what they are doing. What would you have said 7 years ago if someone told you interest rates would be kept near 0 for many years (many more to come) and the money supply quadrupled or whatever? You would have declared them insane.

That's where we are living now, in an insane economic reality.

So I think it's fair to say that something isn't optimal here and Ben isn't the genius Time Magazine made him look like when they gave him their "Person of the Year" cover...

Yellen admitted herself she had no clue about the bursting bubble of 2007/2008 and didn't see it coming.

Unfortunately, the right people will never be in the right position there, because they are not in the sheltered realm of politics, but out there in the real world. And also, it can be a very unpleasant thing to face the truth sometimes...

If I was president, I would make Peter Schiff or somebody like him Fed chairman, ha ha!

Another example: I was discussing inflation with so many friends who had studied economy, and they all seemed to believe the official inflation numbers. They had learned about this stuff for years, but couldn't even keep their eyes open for price changes at the supermarket. One good friend of mine, a clever guy, said he would ask his professor about this. A couple of weeks later we talked again and of course he told me his professor had assured him the official numbers are correct.

I don't even want to get into what happened when I told my friends about the massive gold price suppression (which is a proven fact), ha ha...

I have seen it again and again... those are just a couple of examples.

You seem pretty new to this way of thinking, you can check out websites like zerohedge.com, if you are interested. You get a lot of info there the mass media would never tell you...

Yup, that's what I meant, the distinction between pure academics and people who have worked in economy.

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Thanks for the answer, I think your approach actually makes some sense. I still think the macroeconomy can be managed somewhat well for a complex adaptive system, but like you said, who knows. That being said, I think it's very prone to mismanagement. If you don't know what's what, you are probably going to make things a lot worse. On that front, I think Bernanke is brilliant, and think formal education (in a university setting, in a professional setting, etc.) is all but necessary (with maybe the occasional exception).

I believe simple concepts can explain complex ideas so we probably differ there.   Theres not many households finances that could describe a country but there are points which relate
'simplicity is the ultimate sophistication' I think has been said a few times and I'd go with that over any modern political stance

My own take on macroeconomy or any larger picture that seems too unwieldy to even consider is to look at positive feedback and negative feedback scenarios.  I think natural effects outweigh anyone even a financial genius, even a superpower could get swamped by something entirely natural so Im looking at those systems that amplify especially via feedback.

  I do think QE fits into that and probably a few other things in effect now.  Can a strength also be a weakness, simple questions are applicable and I dont have a Phd but I will not defer to the FED on this
 Rickards often gives good examples and info on this theme and it makes sense to me

I suppose he would have a good point on that front, but I still think that ultimately universities and corporations are very competitive and very decentralized, so it would require a global front to unify economists and get them on the same page for n amount of time. n being forever, in this case.

I guess I would shutup when somebody could tell me what running a business (microeconomy) has to do with stabilizing the global economy (macroeconomy). The problem, in my mind, is this hugely flawed idea that "countries work like households." Would you at least agree that this is probably where we're ultimately differing?

He is probably talking about self bias.   A university is part of the government system it then intends to study.   We could argue education is independent but the amount of money put out by government and the large amounts spent by universities I think puts them into a mutual relationship.    I think Timothy Geithner, Ben Bernanke and BHO have between them one years experience in the real world of business unfunded by taxes and yet they spent trillions with their high qualification and almost zero experience

Whats radical now used to count as common sense

Alright, well clearly you have some radical opinions on this. Can you provide any backing for what you just said? That was an incredibly bold statement. Which research / set of facts led you to this conclusion? It seems like you've said anybody who worked in that industry "wouldn't know about it anyways" or something along those lines. I just don't understand how that can be.

I think if there is somebody more qualified than Bernanke, Yellen, etc. it is of the utmost importance that we find them and make sure they are in the right position.

Not me.

But the people sitting at university teaching theory have no idea about the real economy anyways (see Bernanke, etc...). It's not about having formally studied this. 

So just out of curiosity, how many people here have formally studied debt? (Economics, finance majors / grads, credit traders, etc.?)

It's out already. That's why I could write the review.

this is very well written review
What time dose it come out?
sorpport you

Yeah, go ahead and let us know what you think when you are done reading!

There can never be. We want maximum production, at least per hour worked. It is the purpose of the economic system. There can only be production of the wrong things. In the market, this will be adjusted by the price signals. A company goes bust, leaving the resources for a better adapted company.

GM has stuffed the distribution channel with nearly a million cars. It is not on their balance sheet. This can only happen if there is a major price distortion. My guess is that they give the distributors loans, backed by gifts from their government friends. If nothing more, just an implicit guarantee of a future bailout could have been enough.

seems an interesting book

@ Dr Bloggood

I changed my mind and decided to buy Rickards' book.  So far, I am finding much better than I had thought it would be.  I have read a lot of doomer-financial stuff, but Rickards looks like he is very much on top of the game as well as being well-connected.

I'll report back with my own review when I finish it, but it has kick-started some ideas that I will think about and share here if they seem to be good.


EDIT:

@ AnonyMint

I too believe that China will crash hard, and that Germany is at great risk (as is the USA).  Many old models are likely to collapse.  Debt is a killer.

I would agree that there is worldwide overcapacity in most products.  That does not seem to be the case for "tapered roller bearings", we cannot get enough (from Korea anyway).

@ all

Zero Hedge today had a piece on Japan's national debt reaching 1.02 quadrillion Yen...:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-10/japan-debt-update-%C2%A5102000000000000000

***

Disclosure: our Chinese car wheel bearings sell very well in Peru.

There is a massive level of overcapacity in manufacturing in the world. China's manufacturers are learning how to sell direct, check out http://dhgate.com

DHGate holds the funds until the shipped products are received. Thus you can deal confidently with direct suppliers of Chinese manufactured goods.

Watch out Amazon.com! Your days are numbered.

Germany has a negative population growth rate.

Germany's over engineers things and their Cathedral model and culture is not well adapted to fast changing Bazaar type of future of R&D.

Some Germans are so anal, they even write down every item they purchase for home use in a ledger. And some look down on other people as inferior. I have German ancestry (mixed with others) so I understand that perfectionist mindset (I have it on call), but I am thankful I am a mix of cultures so I can adapt.

That sounds very reasonable, they are holding the hen! That only helps once they close the "hole in their barrel" and stop paying for the southern countries though.

I have heard rumours Merkel wants to change course, maybe something will happen after the EU elections.

This ignores their production.   They dont have to sell to Europe, the arabs will still have oil, the Russians gas and so on.   In the end people sell so they can buy what they need, so the fact Germany has products to export on a regular basis is always going to be a good thing.
I take the point those best off have more to lose in a way but they arent holding a golden egg, they have the hen :p   If europe screws up, or uk or USA then they'll be others with more then just credit notes to hand over and Germany or anyone who produces will be best placed to continue forward.

The mistake Merkel made was being too much in fear of bad debt.  Always there must be focus of what works, the death of a bad company is needed like a tree must be cut back to keep new growth in the right direction.
All of this bailout is to support what has not worked, is not working and in future it still wont be productive so why spend so much to get so little back.  True growth is exponential, 2008 till 2014 and this kind of return is missing presumed dead but its out there

Thanks op for your review

No prob. I wish I had saved myself that time, as I was reading the book for the better parts of 4 days... But hey, I also took something with me from it.

You are painting a pretty dark picture there. Who knows whqat might happen. As I said, Germany is gonna get dragged down with the rest of the countries sooner or later.

Obviously, I was talking present tense though. Things in Germany look pretty normal at the surface (at the moment, at the very present time as we are speaking)! People are becoming increasingly desperate in Greece, Italy and Spain, but they are not desparate at this time, right now, in Germany.

Actually, Germany may very well be an epicenter for the collapse of the Euro. Why? Because they are a massive creditor. During debt implosions, creditors take huge losses. Creditors tend to watch their economies contract much steeper then debtors. German manufacturing firms are loaded to the hilt with operational debt. Germany continues flooding the world with excess production of vehicles, equipment etc. All financed by debt. The German state itself is not in good shape because of simple demographics. Do you really think all those young Mohammed's in Germany will willfully pay the pensions of Mr and Mrs Hanz?

Germany has imploded it's own economy about 4 times in the last 100 years alone, including some of the worst hyperinflation ever recorded. Let's not forget the wealth loss they are responsible for via 2 world wars. Don't let their propaganda fool you.

$7000 Gold will never happen.

Long before that the banking system would have already imploded.

Jim Rickard's is a typical dooms day hack. These guys are all over the place pumping gold and their own books. Ironically they all seem to be reading the same tea leaves or something.

Thanks a lot, Doc, i think you save me much time.

Both.

On one hand, history always repeats itself. Human psychology stays exactly the same.

On the other hand, the mistakes made now are very different from the mistakes made in, say, the great depression. People learn from the old mistakes and make differnt new ones. Conditions are a bit different too. So it can't be exactly the same.

It's all very complicated...

Rickards, in the book, writes a lot about structural problems which are treated as if they were cyclical problems.

Inreresting thread, interesting book.

I really took a lot from Currency Wars and the SDR theory continues in DoM.

A question I ask myself is whether any upcoming crisis will follow the pattern of previous ones or will it be 'new'?

The worst tax is always going to be that which discourages the most productive activities in a country.    Tax on alcohol is practically genius compared to taxing a company attempting to make a profit and employ people.    Even worse is when they tax by proxy by forcing companies to piggyback gov policy like Obama likes to do.
The greatest mistakes are those repeated often.   Obama has tax on companies which employ more then 50 people, so discouraging employment.   Greece I bet has similar tactics in their war on profit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_tax


We had a Greek politician on the news the other day and I was surprised to hear some sense.  She said their problem is not fiscal but structural, even while people praise the Greek recovery; their recent ability to issue new debt.   The real problem is their failure to allow free trade and business, they have the same old over governance, endless laws on how to operate legally & too high taxes that works to stop honest use of Greece by the Greeks to do business with the world.
  The EU is famous for its throttling and destructive regulations, they didnt fix it they reinforced that system apparently

I thought that was why everyone was eager to save Greece.  Germany liabilities abroad are great but as its a great exporter it should be in a strong position to determine terms but you say not

That's not my quote, I didn't say that. Reading really isn't that hard.

One of the problems before the crisis was that those $50 were not collected. Not sure how the situation is currently. I hear Greeks are taxed into oblivion right now.

Nice book

lol
"Greece just needs a better tax system"

Paying taxes to government is like paying $50 for a Big Mac.

I suggest that you are complacent about half of the municipalities are bankrupt in Germany. The shit is going to hit fan in Germany in another year or two.

You are not prepared for what is coming.

It will be global contagion and yes it will get as bad in Germany as it is in Greece now.

France will fry next before Germany does.

Can you read?

Do you seriously suggest things are as bad in Germany as they are in Italy, Spain or Greece?

This ego shit is too stupid, let's not continue this.

I am not angry. I am trying to wake you up from your complacency.

What part of 200 year debt highs do you fail to grasp?

What part of massive corruption do you fail to grasp?

Well, $7.000 would be in real terms, in todays-dollar-terms, just calculating gold against the money supply. To that, you would have to add any (hyper)inflation, which, as you say, should be expected. So the end number might be a lot higher, but us PM holders won't gain anything from that. The nominal number isn't that interesting in the end.

Interesting history lesson there!

Oh, and nice avatar!

Dude, keep your cool and read that phrase you quoted and my OP again carefully! Your anger is making you adress the wrong people. I would say 0,7% is pretty rocking compared to what's happening in Spain, Italy, Greece or Portugal.

I'm basically of your opinion, and I think this could be as bad or worse than the great depression. You are smarter than me, because you know it will start exactly in 2015 (so 7th of May 2015 or what) and know exactly how bad it will be. I don't know when it will start or how bad exactly it will become.

That does happen and Germany has alot of immigrants and workers, but its not without some trouble from its population.   It is good for an economy to receive valid workers but the people may not feel as much if they are outnumbered by people who may not even speak the language.    Kazakhstan is the size of europe but with only the population of a couple major UK cities, they have many migrant chinese workers apparently and risk 'losing' their country to foreigners who never leave.
  Its fairly controversial but there are some benefits to europe from shared resources and it does have this strength there.   Also a ton of red tape and politics and general stupidity so no utopia


Also 7000 is an arbitrary figure as any great rise in gold likely comes with a fall in dollar so we are not talking present day values but unknowns.   Eventually gold will continue at the same value its been on average anyway but its possible it does spike as high as previous centuries, apparently Henry VIII's gold sovereigns were an all time high during his reformations.  They are still made today, not much else lasts that long.
If we are blowing smoke, I'll say 70,000 as that'd be inline with similar currency depreciation like Marc Faber has studied in the past.   Look at the rouble, peso or drachma and price gold in that over the years and the price gets silly quick

If we base estimates on past fiat devaluations as below, gold sold at $1300 USA dollars becomes 91, 170 or $284,000 over a century I guess
Its minted half that weight now so if we presume gold price accurate in both cases then Sterling has devalued 99.5% over 500 years, mostly in the last fifty I think since we dropped silver from the coins.  
So sterling is the oldest still used currency besides gold but almost in name only.  Its no longer silver or gold based, neither is dollar; also originally copied like pound from a silver coin standard
[The 9th century 1 pound silver is £131 now, the 16th century Sterling pound is now £70 but silver itself is less valued now due to south american mines, we cant say gold wont do the same but it hasnt so far apparently]

You are uninformed as 0.7% growth (and on a consistent decline after peaking at 4.2% in 2010) is not rocking:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.6167555

All of Europe will sink into negative growth later this year or next.

Global sovereign debt BIG BANG starts 2015.75.

And it will be worse than horrific.

WTF is wrong with you people? This is a 200 - 300 year high in global debt (even the IMF said that).

This is a 200 year event.

This ain't gonna' be no Great Depression 2.0. It is going to be like the collapse of Rome from 1.4 million to 30,000 population and stayed that way for 600+ DARK years.

Do you boiling frogs have any freakin' clue why? Look at what the bastards are doing:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.6278398

Actually, he makes the point that if workers from European countries with high unemployment could be moved to countries in which population/work force is missing, that would be a great thing for Europe. Europe is not short of qualified workers.

That's one of very few points in the European chapter that make sense...

$55.000 - $100.000 non-hyper inflated is a bit much, although not completely out of the question. It's clear though that Rickards stays on the conservative side of estimation there, just to make sure nobody comes to him in 10 years and says: "You said gold would go to $50.000, but it only went to $17.000! You suck!"

It's a good thing to calculate your potential gains on the conservative side, and $7.000 is quite conservative.

I have heard of FOFOA, but have never really dived into his theories.

You said you have read many books about themes like this one - which ones did you like best?

Germany has problems with its falling population I believe which of course effects working capital in their economy
Spain, Japan also and their problems are more obvious


Rickards should know about failure, he was involved with LTCM which was a bailout preceding Lehmans

...

Rickards needs to think BIG re future price of gold.

$55,000 - $100,000 per oz.  Non-hyperinflated dollars.

Long and hard reading, but pretty much required if you really like gold, start way back in late-2009 if possible, although his second newest post is an acceptable summary of his ideas:

fofoa.blogspot.com




_{I am not FOFOA.}  

Don't get me wrong, Germany is still kind of rocking, at least compared to much of the rest of the EU. But it won't be able to carry that weight forever, and the overall situation gets worse and worse. Anyways, I couldn't believe my eyes when I read about "positive real interest rates". Actually, reading that passage again, Rickards is probably refering to the Eurozone, and not to Germany, but it's bullshit anyways. The Eurozone interest rate is 0,25% and inflation is 0,50% and must have been higher when the book was written. But even now the real interest rate is negative (-0,25%).

Btw, Rickards says that gold would have to be re-evaluated to at least $7.000 - $9.000, was it to be used for an (even partial) gold standard. That calculation makes sense.

...

@ Dr Bloggood and fellow BTC Talkers interested in money

Thank you for the review, Doc!  I have read many books that are in this general "space", and believe that our monetary systems are in peril for several reasons.

I appreciated very much your views on Europe and especially Germany.  Most of what I read says that Germany is really rockin' even while not mentioning the strong ties that Germany has with the rest of (faltering) Europe.  Your comments balance that noise...   

While I believe that a full-blown collapse of the financial system is unlikely (that is, taking us to a "Mad Max" or TEOTWAWKI...), there is an excellent chance of what I call "Great Depression v. 2".  Where it gets very hard to get work, crime goes up (typical in very hard times) and a variety of ugly after-effects.  The probability of something bad is pretty high, IMO.  And it will be worldwide.

What to do?  Saving money, in various forms (gold, BTC, etc.) is part of the equation.  Getting out of debt.  Owning other hard assets, including CA$H at home.  And depending on how severe you think our system might crash: guns & ammo, water & food, etc...  The big question is, how much (and how) do you prepare?  That depends on your level of financial paranoia (I am financially paranoid) and your own situation.

Excellent thread!

Yeah, I spent a lot of time with that cover over the last couple of days...

I love it, it's the equivalent of the "Currency Wars" cover, with bills of different currencies shooting at each other.

No problem.

What about Amazon? You could wait till they accept BTC and then buy...

Thanks! I love the fact the first two responses here go into 2 totally different directions, ha ha! That means I could kind of round out the picture.


That's absolutely true, he does!

It's just that chapter about Europe that raised my blood pressure...

You are welcome!

Just found a cover for this book:




A graveyard of fiats.   

Thanks for the review I've heard about this book and I may get a copy after reading your review.  I just wish the bookstore nearby hadn't shut down.  But yea well put together review.

Well this is very well written review!
This book seems to be very interesting and worth reading.

+1 for sharing.

Jim Rickards know a lot about WallStreet and about trading and about money.
That's for sure.

Thanks for taking the time to write this.
I found the review very helpful. Will probably take a pass on this book.

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.