James Rickards - The Death of Money

U.S. investment in, 127

Eurozone, 117, 121–27, 129, 130, 135, 136

gold-to-GDP ratio of, 157, 280

exchange rates, 130

external adjustment of unit labor costs, 131

Fail-Safe (film), 63

Fannie Mae, 248

Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), 249–52

Federal Reserve

asset bubble creation by, 75–78

bank risk taking in low-interest-rate environment created by, 80–81

central bank, status as, 198–99

central planning by, 69, 71, 87

debt and deficits, monetary policy’s relation to, 176–77, 180–89

deflation and, 9–11, 76–83

easy-money policy of (See easy-money policy of Federal Reserve)

financial repression engineered by, 183–84

financial war, views on, 60–62

FOMC member views on tapering versus money-printing, 249–52

forward guidance of, 83, 86, 185–88

gold held in vaults of, 230

Great Depression monetary policy of, 223

Greenspan’s battling of deflation and creation of housing bubble, 76

insolvency of, 286–88

irreversibility of money creation and, 290

money contract and, 167, 180–89

PDS inputs, and monetary policy, 180–83

quantitative easing (QE) programs, 184–85

real income declines resulting from policies of, 78–79

savers penalized by policies of, 79

SME lending damaged by policies of, 79–80

U.S Treasury debt purchases by, 172

wealth effect and, 72–75

zero-interest-rate policy of, 72, 73, 79–81, 185, 186, 260

Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 73–74, 230

Federal Reserve Notes, 167

Federation of American Scientists, 58

fiat money, 168–69

financial repression, 183–84

financial risk, 85, 268–70

financial transmission, 193–94

financial war, 6–7, 42–64

accidental, 63

Chinese cybercapabilities, 45–46, 51–53

CIC-Blackstone deal, 51–52

cyberattacks combined with, 59–60

defensive aspects of, 46

enemy hedge fund scenario, 47–51

equilibrium models and, 62

Federal Reserve’s view of, 60–62

MARKINT as means of detecting, 40–41

offensive aspects of, 46

panic dynamic and, 62

physical targets, 46

purpose of, 61

solutions to, 64

U.S. cybercapabilities, 53–54

U.S.-Iran, 54–58

U.S.-Syria, 57

U.S. Treasury’s view of, 60–62

virtual targets, 46

Wall Street’s cybercapabilities, 54

war games, 58–59

fine art, as investment, 299

fiscal dominance, 287–88

Fiscal Stability Treaty (EU), 135–36

Fisher, Irving, 168, 246–47

Fisker, 123

Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 252

flash crash, 63, 270, 296–97

floating-exchange-rate regime, 235

Fonda, Jane, 1

food price inflation, 3

food stamps, 246

Ford, Gerald, 271–72

forward guidance, 83, 86, 185–88

forwards, gold, 275, 285–86

France, 235, 236

Franco-Prussian War, 115

Frank, Barney, 204, 205

Frankenreich, 112, 113–14

Freakonomics (Levitt and Dubner), 32–33

Freddie Mac, 248

Friedman, Milton, 84, 168, 263

Friedman, Tom, 256

Froman, Michael, 195, 196, 202–3

futures, gold, 275, 284–86

G7, 139, 140, 147

G9, 139–40

G20, 140, 147, 202, 203

Galloni, Alessandra, 131–32

Gang of Ten, 138, 139

Geithner, Timothy, 195, 196, 203, 244

General Electric, 255

General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, The (Keynes), 246–47

Genoa Conference, 1922, 221–22

Gensler, Gary, 195, 196

geopolitics, 12–13

Germany, 125, 127, 136–37, 281

gold repatriation by, 231–32

GIIPS (Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain), 140, 142–46

Glass-Steagall, repeal of, 196, 253, 296

gold, 215–42

BIS transactions, 276–78

central bank acquisition of, since 2010, 225–30

central bank manipulation of, 271–81

Charlemagne’s switch from gold to silver standard, 114

Chávez’s repatriation of, 40, 231

China’s accumulation of, 12, 61, 226–30, 282–84, 296

classical gold standard, 1870–1914, 176, 234–35

constructing new gold standard, 237–42

contract money system, role in, 169–71

contracts based on, risks associated with, 217–18

disorderly price movements, implications of, 295–96

dollar convertibility abandoned, in 1971, 1, 2, 5, 209, 220, 235, 285

dollar standard, 234–35

drop from 1980 highs, 2

forwards, 275, 285–86

futures, 275, 284–86

Germany’s repatriation of, 231–32

gold exchange standard, 221–22, 224, 234–35

gold-to-GDP ratios, 157, 279–82

Great Depression caused by gold myth, 221–24

IMF sales of, 235–36, 277

as investment portfolio recommendation, 298–99

Iranian trading of, in financial war with U.S., 55–56

lease arrangements, 275, 284

market panics caused by gold myth, 224

monetary policy, and classical gold standard, 176

monetary system, role in, 217, 220–25

as M-Subzero, 280, 283–84

nature of, 218–20

as numeraire, 219–20

price rise of, 1977 to 1980, 1

price rise of, 2006 to 2011, 3

private market demand for, 230

quantity insufficient to support world trade and finance myth, 220

repatriation of, 40, 231–34

reserves, rebalancing of, 279–84

return-to-gold-standard scenario, 293–94

as risk-free asset, 219

Russia’s accumulation of, 12, 229–30

shadow gold standard, 236

storage of, at Federal Reserve and Bank of England vaults, 230–31

swaps, 275

Switzerland’s repatriation of, 232–33

U.S. attitude to, shift in, 235, 236

Gold and Foreign Exchange Committee, 272–73

Goldberg, Jonah, 294

Gold Bloc devaluations, 222

Goldman Sachs, 32–33, 128, 139, 140, 205, 206, 262

gold-to-GDP ratios, 157, 279–82

Goodhardt, Charles, 71, 72, 87, 188

Goodhardt’s Law, 71, 87

Gotthard Base Tunnel, 123

government debt repayment, impact of deflation on, 9, 258

government program dependency, in U.S., 246

Graeber, David, 255

Grant, James, 177

Great Depression, 84, 85, 125–26, 155, 221–22, 223–24, 234, 244, 245

Greece, 128, 133–34, 142, 153, 200, 290

greed, 25

Greenspan, Alan, 76, 77, 122

gross domestic product (GDP)

of China, 93, 96

components of, 84, 96

debt-to-GDP ratio, 9, 159–60, 173, 258–59, 261

of U.S., 96, 244

Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), 12, 150, 152–57

monetary integration process and, 153–57

as quasi-currency union, 153

Hague Congress, 116

Hall, Robert, 86–87

Hamilton, Alexander, 120–21

Han Dynasty, 90

Hanke, Steve, 80

Haydn, Michael, 37

Hayek, Friedrich, 70–71, 72, 87

hedge fund covert operations, 47–51

Hemingway, Ernest, 256

Herzegovina, 136

Himes, James, 284

Holocaust, 115

Holy Roman Empire, 114, 115

Hong Ziuquan, 91

Hoover, Herbert, 85

housing market

bubbles in, 75, 76–77, 248

collapse of, 2007, 248, 296

rise in, since 2009, 291

wealth effect and, 72, 73

HSBC, 227

Hu Jintao, 151–52, 202

Hunt, Lacy H., 74, 79

Hunt brothers, 217

Hyundai, 82

ImClone Systems, 25

income inequality, in China, 106

India, 12, 139, 151. See also BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa)

IMF commitment of, 202

U.S.-Iran financial war and, 55, 57

Indonesia, 45

inflation, 3–4, 7–9, 75–83

alternative measures of, 3

Berlin Consensus and, 122–23

versus deflation, in depression of 2007 to present, 243–52, 260, 290–91