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This book showcases written dialogue from Brendan Brown and Philippe Simonnot on the subject of European monetary turmoil past and present and what hope there could be for future reform. Starting with the collapse of the gold standard in 1914, proceeding to the brief gold-dollar standard of the mid inter-war years, on to the collapse of Bretton Woods and the heyday of the Deutsche mark and ultimately discussing the euro, this book looks at a broad range of financial history alongside many new and provoking hypotheses about the devastating monetary turbulence of the successive eras, always with a focus on the US monetary hegemon. A highlight of the dialogue is an exploration of how past and future crises could combine to give birth to sound money in Europe - the launch, in effect, of a new euro. In the questions and answers within these pages, the authors draw on global examples and the challenges for Europe in deciding how to adapt to successive monetary shocks from the US, crafting a book that would be of interest to general finance and economics readers alongside students, researchers, and policymakers.
List of contents
Part I. Introduction.- Chapter 1. The Tyranny of Unsound Money.- Part II. Dialogue.- Chapter 2. Phobia of Deflation.- Chapter 3. The Great War and the End of the Gold Standard.- Chapter 4. From Birth of Dollar Hegemony Towards the 1929 Crisis.- Chapter 5. Explaining 1929.- Chapter 6. How Gold Financed Nazi Germany.- Chapter 7. Bretton Woods: The False Gold Standard.- Chapter 8. The Strategic Choice for Germany.- Chapter 9. For or Against Friedman.- Chapter 10. How the Euro Was Born.- Chapter 11. Trichet in Front of Trichet.- Chapter 12. The Great Crisis of 2008.- Chapter 13. American Capitalism Versus European Capitalism.- Chapter 14. The Submission of the Euro to the 2% Inflation Standard.- Chapter 15. Draghi: "Whatever It Takes".- Chapter 16. The Greek Crisis.- Chapter 17. Banking Union.- Chapter 18. The Underperformance of Europe.- Chapter 19. The Balance Sheet of Draghi.- Chapter 20. The Principles of the New Euro.- Chapter 21. The Launch of the New Euro.- Part III. Conclusion.- Chapter 22. At the Heart of the World.- Chapter 23. Epilogue: From Pandemic to High Inflation.
About the author
Brendan Brown is a Senior Research Fellow of the Hudson Institute, Washington, DC, and an Associate Scholar at the Mises Institute (USA). He is a founding partner of Macro Hedge Advisors LLP. Formerly Brendan was Head of Economic Research at Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (Europe). His areas of expertise include monetarism in theory and practice, Austrian School monetary tradition, European monetary integration, Japanese monetary issues, the global flow of capital, and international financial history. Brendan has published many books on contemporary finance and financial history. He received a PhD from the University of London, a MBA from the University of Chicago, a MSc from the London School of Economics, and an undergraduate degree from Cambridge University.
Philippe Simonnot is a French economist. He was professor of Law and Economics at the University of Paris Sorbonne and Paris Nanterre and has a doctorate in economics. He is the author of many books on history and economics, particularly in the monetary field. His latest book is
Nouvelles leçons d'économie contemporaine (2018). He also publishes columns on economic affairs in the press, particularly Le Monde.
