In troubled economic times like now, knowing how money works can help you through the trials ahead for all of us. The coronavirus is changing the world economy in drastic ways. This will accelerate inequality. Those of us with assets–houses, cars, stocks, bonds, 401ks, etc.–will get richer as the Federal Reserve pumps up the Stock Market. Those without assets will slide into poverty.
Jacob Goldstein’s clever Money blends a history of money with the invention of banking and finance. “The essence of finance is time travel… Saving is about moving resources from the present into the future; financing is about moving resources from the future back into the present.” (p. 46)
Goldstein writes clearly with excellent examples. Money explains what fiscal calamities loom ahead and what you can do to survive them. GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
AUTHOR’S NOTE — xi
I. Inventing Money — 1
1: The Origin of Money — 3
2: When We Invented Paper Money, Had an Economic Revolution, Then Tried to Forget the Whole Thing Ever Happened — 13
II. The Murder, the Boy King, and the Invention of Capitalism — 25
3: How Goldsmiths Accidentally Re-Invented Banks (and Brought Panic to Britain) — 27
4: How to Get Rich with Probability — 35
5: Finance as Time Travel: Inventing the Stock Market — 45
6: John Law Gets to Print Money — 55
7: The Invention of Millionaires — 63
III. More Money –75
8: Everybody Can Have More Money — 77
9: But Really: Can Everybody Have More Money? — 89
IV. Modern Money — 99
10: The Gold Standard: A Love Story — 101
11: Just Don’t Call It a Central Bank — 117
12: Money Is Dead. Long Live Money — 135
V. Twenty-First-Century Money — 149
13: How Two Guys in a Room Invented a New Kind of Money — 151
14: A Brief History of the Euro (and Why the Dollar Works Better) — 169
15: The Radical Dream of Digital Cash — 187
16: CONCLUSION: The Future of Money — 213
Acknowledgements — 227
Notes — 229
Index — 243
