Paper Promises: Debt, Money, and the New World OrderWinner of theSpear'sBest Business Book Award Longlisted for the 2012Financial Timesand Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award For the past forty years western economies have splurged on debt. Now, as the reality dawns that many debts cannot be repaid, we find ourselves again in crisis. But the oncoming defaults have a time-worn place in our economic history. As with the crises in the 1930s and 1970s, governments will fall, currencies will lose their value, and new systems will emerge. Just as Britain set the terms of the international system in the nineteenth century, and America in the twentieth century, a new system will be set by today's creditors in China and the Middle East. In the process, rich will be pitted against poor, young against old, public sector workers against taxpayers and one country against another. InPaper Promises, Economist columnist Philip Coggan helps us to understand the origins of this mess and how it will affect the new global economy by explaining how our attitudes towards debt have changed throughout history, and how they may be about to change again. |
Contents
The Nature of Money | 17 |
Ignoring Polonius | 43 |
Going for Gold | 64 |
Money and the Depression | 79 |
Dancing with the Dollar | 99 |
Paper Promises | 114 |
Blowing Bubbles | 134 |
Riding the Gravy Train | 153 |
The Crisis Begins | 175 |
Not So Riskfree | 192 |
Bequeathing Our Debts | 212 |
Paying the Bill | 230 |
A New Order | 256 |
Notes | 269 |
| 282 | |
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allowed American argued asset prices bankers billion bonds boom borrow money Bretton Woods system Britain British bubble budget businesses capital cent of GDP central banks century Charles Kindleberger Chinese coins companies consumer cost countries country’s created creditors currency debt crisis debt-to-GDP ratio debtors default devaluation developed world dollar economic activity economic growth economists euro euro-zone European eventually exchange-rate fiscal fixed exchange rates France fund German global gold standard government debt Greece higher house prices hyperinflation income increase industry inflation interest rates investment investors issue J. K. Galbraith Keynes lenders lending loans managers ment monetary money supply nations paper money payments pension politicians private equity problem profits quantitative easing recession renminbi repay reserves result rise risk savings sector sell share prices sound money speculative spending store of value surplus taxes trillion wealth William Jennings Bryan workers