The Death of Money: Q&A With James Rickards

1x 1.1x 1.25x 1.5x 2x 3x

:15 :15

Download

The Death of Money: Q&A With James Rickards

HD Video Download

"Everything that was 'too big to fail' in 2008 is bigger and more dangerous today," says New York Times bestselling author James Rickards. Rickards predicts the crash of the global currency market and insolvency of the U.S. dollar in his latest book, The Death of Money: The Coming Collapse of the International Monetary System. "We're waiting for the catalyst that will cause this catastrophe to come tumbling down." 

Reason Managing Editor Katherine Mangu-Ward sat down with Rickards to discuss the future of money and a return to the financial stability of the gold standard in an event co-hosted by the Charles Koch Institute.

About 30 minutes.

Cameras by Amanda Winkler and Joshua Swain. Edited by Swain.

Scroll down for downloadable versions and subscribe to ReasonTV's YouTube Channel to receive notification when new material goes live.

Comments

[royalphoenix]

good piece, thank you !

[Gman]

REMEMBER, a currency collapse is a local event; it does not happen all over the world at once. FATCA is coming, but for now even Americans can still open offshore accounts in more fiscally sound countries without leaving home
swisssolution.webs.com

[Vulgar Madman]

Just remember, when it happens it's going to be capitalisms fault.
/tony

[Knarf the Yenrabian]

I know I'm supposed to be on the Austrian doomwagon, but the Continental collapsed and our forebears soldiered on amiably. Political shit happens, but you can't do anything about it other than accept it--just buy some PM and possibly bitcoins and weather the storm.

Speaking from experience, it's a whole lot easier to weather financial storms when you possess technology that can store every book ever written in the palm of your hand.

[steve baker]

Buy batteries.

[JohnInFlorida]

Re; response to a dumb post (Kty's) ... your reply is the best I've seen in a long time.

[Knarf the Yenrabian]

So when does the UFO arrive, Johnny?

[Knarf the Yenrabian]

Ugh, screwed up your name. Meant to write "So when does the UFO arrive, Tulpa?"

[The Inked Economist]

So much fear-mongering voodoo economics in this video. First, the fact that he lumps the Federal Reserve, FDIC, and the Treasury into one entity which he calls "The Fed" is rather odd. Second, the Federal Reserve cannot become insolvent because they can simply print more money and add it to their assets. Third, he makes the cheap appeal to Warren Buffet asserting that Mr. Buffet is buying railroads because he wants "hard assets" and to get out of the dollar. How does he know? Maybe Mr. Buffet is simply buying what he sees as an undervalued investment opportunity to flip it for a profit. And the fact that Mr. Buffet "bought the whole thing" is not odd for Berskhire-Hathaway, the often buy controlling stock in whatever firm they target. That's their business model so that they can get in there and flip the company.

[The Inked Economist]

Fourth, why is everyone so afraid of a global currency? There's a reason why all the US states use the same dollar and why we came up with the Euro: it lowers transactions costs and makes markets more efficient. That's not to say there should be a currency monopoly, just that a universal currency could add a level of efficiency. The dollar is basically a stand-in for a global currency anyway. Fifth, people get on this "Too Big to Fail" kick and worry that the system has become more unstable. I see it the other way: by increasing banks' balance sheets and diversifying risk you actually make them more stable. Yes, we're putting our eggs into fewer baskets but those baskets are much sturdier.

[The Inked Economist]

Sixth, I've studied Glass-Steagall and there's absolutely no empirical evidence of banks trading against their customers. It's just not there. And to compare Glass-Steagall to what happened in 2008 is a misrepresentation because the CDO's were rated AAA! Almost nobody thought that they would fail. Moreover, it wasn't Ma and Pa Kettle buying CDO's at "retail shops" it was large, sophisticated investors.

[advancedatheist]

Libertarians need to make up their minds about natural resources. You can't support both cornucopianism and the gold standard because they make contradictory assumptions.