Devaluation

This book is essential reading on the Asian financial crisis. It contains a judicious overview of alternative interpretations of the origins of the crisis. It then uses a computable general equilibrium model to analyze the impact of the crisis on different regions of the world, with special emphasis on the United States.

I enjoy reading books filled with dire predictions several decades after publication. With the benefit of hindsight the question of why the author was or was not correct is fascinating. I highly recommend this book, as even though the author may have been wrong in certain areas, I feel that many of the themes of the book are relevant today.

Doing very well as an investor doesn't take much intelligence, just a lot of patience and a willingness to ignore fads. At the time Browne's book was first published, gold and silver were laughingstock as investments, and so was anyone who bought them. Thirty years later, we're right back to an instant replay of the Seventies. A long war, government printing money with abandon, stocks taking a beating but equity cheerleaders assuring us we won't have a ten- or fifteen-year bear market again. Browne's book is well-written, but you can save youself the money nowadays by just entering the words 'gold bull market' in your favorite Internet search engine. Paper assets go out of fashion every twenty-five to thirty years, and when they do, gold and silver do spectacularly well. That, in a nutshell, is how to profit from the coming devaluation of the U.S. dollar; sell your dollars for gold and silver, then sit tight and wait. Don't bother telling anyone, you'll just be ridiculed first and reviled later. Just like those who cleaned up by following Browne's counterculture advice when this book was on the bestseller lists in the Disco era.

---AS A SEPARATE BOOK!!!

It's the BEST introduction to economics ever written. I've owned a copy since the early 70's when I was in high school, and I've never beeen fooled by politician's promises ever since.

I've read it several times. Much of the rest of the book is dated so doesn't need to be republished.

If Harry would republish and widely distribute the first 78 pages or so of this book to all high school and college students, the politicians would have a much more difficult time fooling voters with their schemes.