Money: How the Destruction of the Dollar Threatens the Global Economy – and What We Can Do About It

CHAPTER 1

How We Got Here

      In the fall of 2008, the U.S. suffered its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. . . . Five years on . . . the country’s economy is still sick. Unemployed middle-aged men look in the mirror and see someone who may never work again. Young married couples who should be on the way up are living in their parents’ basement.

—DANIEL HENNINGER, Wall Street Journal

THE WORLD HAS SUFFERED THROUGH A TURBULENT DEcade. The last 10 years have seen a financial panic in the United States that nearly brought down the global financial system. It was followed by the worst recession in more than 30 years; solvency crises that imperiled governments in the United States and Europe; a financial meltdown in Iceland; attacks ...