Global Economy

The world had never seen government paper money until the colonial government of Massachusetts, 1690.

Try to find someone in present-day Vienna who is familiar with the exceptional work of the former finance minister of the Austrian monarchy.

It was a modern thriving economy one day, and then, suddenly, the food disappeared from the shelves, the banks closed, and the ships stopped arriving. Iceland in 2008 experienced an unprecedented economic meltdown that struck fear in the hearts...

In a wider historical perspective, the current currency war is the latest conflict in a series of acute crises of the modern international monetary system. In a world of national monetary regimes based on fiat money without physical anchors, domestic monetary instability automatically transforms into exchange-rate instability.

This world-renowned merchant seeks no fame for his business achievements.

Higher food prices set off the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and the mass protests in countries like Algeria, Jordan, Yemen, Bahrain, and Iran. People in these countries buy more unprocessed foods and spend a much higher percentage of their income on food, so they have been severely impoverished by Bernanke's QE2.

Tunisia and Egypt have a massive youth-unemployment problem. Unsurprisingly, they also have a system of "free" college education.

In order to understand the tragedy of the euro and its history, it is important to be familiar with the two diverging and underlying visions and tensions that have come to the fore in the face of a single currency.

The cause of the European debt crisis, in its simplest form, was overspending by (mainly southern) European governments during the last decade, and especially after the 2008 financial crisis.

Fergusson presents a compelling argument that the central bankers of Europe did not believe that the quantity of money had anything to do with the price level. And I suppose you think that our modern Fed rulers understand at least this much.