Biography of the Dollar: How the Mighty Buck Conquered the World and Why It's Under Siege

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Biography of the Dollar: How the Mighty Buck Conquered the World and Why It's Under Siege xH_A@hf;  
by: Craig Karmin
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Biography of the Dollar: How the Mighty Buck Conquered the World and Why It's Under Siege <#+oQ>5s  
By Craig Karmin }O,U2=Hw`]  
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Publisher:   Three Rivers Press 2PVx++*]C  
Number Of Pages:   272 vix&E`0
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Publication Date:   2009-04-07 u\{qH!?t  
ISBN-10 / ASIN:   0307339874 dSOlD/c  
ISBN-13 / EAN:   9780307339874 ~lzdbX  
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Product Description: .O5LI35,  
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“A remarkable historical, political, and economic ] vC=.&]  
examination of the dollar.” –Booklist La"o)L +m_  
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Craig Karmin’s in-depth “biography” of the dollar examines the power of the Federal Reserve, the inner sanctums of foreign central banks that stockpile currency, and the little-known circles of foreign exchange traders who determine a currency’s worth. It’s “a surprisingly entertaining and informative social history of the currency that makes the world economy go round,” says Kirkus Reviews. ,c4c@|Bh?  
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“An incredible book that should be required reading for anyone whose future depends on understanding how the dollar is valued and manipulated." –Timothy Ferriss, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The 4-Hour Workweek $hG;2v  
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“An indispensible guide to understanding the way both the U.S. and the world economies work and the dollar’s role in keeping the economic skids greased." –Ram Charan, coauthor of Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done and The Game-Changer .UM<a Ik  
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“It’s hard to imagine a more entertaining book on such a vital subject.” –Bloomberg.com ''#p47$8<d  
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“Craig Karmin’s fortuitously timed Biography of the Dollar argues that the greenback’s recent plunge is more than just a market tumble.”–Portfolio 7"ylN"syZ
 
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Summary: Great book about a topic that we don't think about everyday nK+lE0  
Rating: 5 v~^ks{  
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The author says that the dollar has helped the world's economic expansion, but at the same time encouraged the United States to borrow heavily from foreigners. Now these foreign lenders are questioning whether the U.S. will be able to keep paying the interest on these loans. If they lose faith in our country's ability to pay, this could have very negative consequences for us and the rest of the world. &EAk z  
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The dollar has a special status because it is the primary unit of international trade and finance. It is simply the world's currency. But the status of the dollar is changing and might one day be replaced by the Euro or the Yuan. I learned a lot from this book and recommend it to others. %ZujCZn  
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- Mariusz Skonieczny, author of Why Are We So Clueless about the Stock Market? Learn how to invest your money, how to pick stocks, and how to make money in the stock market rkxW UDl   
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Summary: Brother, can you spare a ... yuan? `S"W8_m  
Rating: 4 +yzcx3<  
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"We don't care if it was in a fire, buried underground, water damaged. Maybe your dog ate it. Came out the other end. Clean it up a bit. We'll take care of it." - A supervisor of the BEP's Mutilated Currency Division <=q*N;=T,  
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Mind you, my attention to high finance extends only to balancing my checkbook, paying the bills on time, socking away as much as I can, and making sure I live within my budget. (In these regards, especially the last, I at least do better than my state and federal governments.) I don't even pay attention to the annual reports that come from my 401k plan. So, for me, BIOGRAPHY OF THE DOLLAR by Craig Karmin was pretty much unexplored territory. r%0pQEl  
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To call this book a "biography" is perhaps a misnomer. Such implies that the story begins with the origin of the $ as a monetary unit, and this isn't the case. Karmin begins the historical part of the story with the establishment of the First Bank of the United States in 1791 and proceeds fairly quickly to the dollar's disengagement from the gold standard in 1971. There's also virtually nothing about the evolution in size, color (or metal content) and denominations of the currency as coin or paper over decades since it became the official legal tender of the U.S. QJx9I_  
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If I was a dollar come to life - one of the rarely seen $2 bills, I think - and asked to write a narrative containing what's in this volume, I would perhaps entitle my essay "What I Did on Several Summer Vacations" since the bulk of the text is dedicated to my experiences with currency speculators, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (especially the Mutilated Currency Division), Ecuador, which abandoned the sucre and adopted me as its sole currency in 2000, the central banks of various overseas nations (particularly in Asia), and my battles to fend off the advances of the euro, Chinese yuan and Japanese yen. 3c c1EQ9  
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The intent of BIOGRAPHY OF THE DOLLAR is apparently to trace the Mighty Buck's fortunes, so to speak, of the recent past and present in the global marketplace as it's challenged by trade imbalances, vacillating interest rates, currency markets, recessions, government and central bank approaches to currency reserves, and an ever growing supply of itself. Perhaps the writing of the volume was two years premature. It makes the reader wonder what the author would say now after the bursting of the U.S. home mortgage bubble, the rising unemployment, the bankruptcies and bank failures, the bailouts, and the prospect of increasing Federal indebtedness and budget deficits under President Obama's social re-engineering plans. In any case, whether or not the dollar will lose its place as the world's dominant medium of exchange is a question Karmin can't, or won't, answer definitively. That's probably the safe course.  X?tj$  
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For the reader savvy in the ways of international finance, the BIOGRAPHY OF THE DOLLAR would likely be too much of a beginner's class. But, in my ignorance, I found it enlightening, interesting, and sometimes entertaining. But, I'm still not going to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal or read my 401k's annual report. \r)%R5_CQ  
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Summary: A fun to read and quite instructive book on a tough subject BjM+0[HC  
Rating: 4 Y4QLs^IdB  
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When I picked it up I was expecting a historical journey starting with the revolutionary period and ending in today. What I got was a high level overview of key events this century, mostly in the last fifty years. The author offers deep and quite instructive insights in the dollar from a trade and monetary policy points of view, showing their deep connections, which goes unnoticed by most. I'm curious about macro economics and monetary policy has been an area where I've not been able to absorb any meaningful material until I read this book. It offers interesting insights about how financial instruments, particularly money and bonds, play a role in government policy and the economy as a whole. The book is fun to read and quite instructive. B,3 t`  
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Summary: Strictly for cash ! ./$ <J6-J  
Rating: 5 aK]7vp+  
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The birth of currency on the core concepts as a store of value, a medium of exchange has enabled trade and economic prosperity over the centuries. Typically societies used gold, silver and copper coins as currencies since these commodities satisfied these fundamental definition of currency. However, in order to facilitate faster and safer transactions, paper currency backed primarily by gold cam into vogue. The country whose currency dominated as the most acceptable tender emerged as the reserve currency of the world. Hence the British Pound Sterling of dominated world markets in the nineteenth century. Subsequently, in the twenty first century and till date the UD Dollar had successfully replaced the Pound and currently reigns as the worlds most traded and acceptable currency. This book outlines this economic history of the Dollar to its present day preeminence among all world currencies. vFTXTbt'h  
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If the book had just covered what is outlined above, I would have considered it at a primer at best, and perhaps given it a two star rating, complimenting it for a chronological listing of events. However, there are lots of interesting facets of the Dollar that is largely ignored in standard books on economics. &k1/Z*/  
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Here is where the book scores and earns its additional three stars. YzVN2f!n  
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- An inside view of the foreign markets from the office of a leading foreign exchange dealer. Provides a good insight into the psychology of traders and how they make or lose money by betting on small fluctuations on the value of a currency against another. XJe/tR  
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- The story of Ecuador is very interesting. Here the government, unable to figure out how to manage its own currency from sharp fluctuations against the dollar and also the consequential impact on inflation finally abandons the local currency and adopts the dollar. Why bother when the US can do the job for us? f%c06Un=  
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- For the first time I got an impressive "tour" of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) where the United States actually prints its greenbacks. This is a thriller, and perhaps deserves a novel or movie ( if one doesn't already exist). Even more fascinating is the Fed's commitment to exchange dollars that are damaged, and sometimes beyond recognition. A IOWA farmer butchers the cow that swallowed his wallet, and sends what can be found in the digestive tract for redemption. The experts at work assess the value of the loss even in this form and promptly dispatch a check to the farmer. A:/}`  
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- The chapter on the US's departure from gold standard (Bretton Woods 1944) and the Plaza Accord is unbiased. However the consequences of unbridled monetary expansion of fiat currency that is not backed t=by any asset is any ones guess. But for now, Fort Knox no longer has the obligation to pay in gold for greenbacks. d!o.ASL{  
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- The Dollar the reserve currency to a large extent, the US benefits from its ability to borrow from other countries. The rapid growth in the US trade deficit and consequential external debt is now reaching alarming proportions warns the author.
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