Gold-standard

I have had this book in my possesion for at least twenty years and referred to it countless times for inspiration. I've used quotes from this book when speaking to thousands of people over the past five years and always received an overwhelming response. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys beautiful inspirational and educational writing.

A wonderful book of inspirational and thought provoking quotes, pieces of poetry, etc. Great just for yourself or to give as a gift. Giving a speech and need ideas? A terrific resource with subjects covering topics from attitude to weddings! Some serious, some humorous, includes famous as well as unknown authors.

This book first written in the early 1980's by the honorable Congressman from Texas and Lewis Lehrman discusses the feasibility of bringing back the gold standard. Moreover, Paul makes the case for the gold standard and the case for abolishing the Federal Reserve, which has to its credit: a Great Depression, bloated government growth, skyrocketing public and private debt, stagnating economic growth, and an inflationary boom in the 1970's.

Amidst, rampant inflation of the 1970's, a skyrocketing deficit... Things didn't look so good and a number of business and political leaders seriously enterained and supported the idea of reverting back to the gold standard. Sooner or later the financial institutions and fiat money cartel will abuse its power of the press and inflate us into another depression. Perhaps then instead of migrating to a world bank and currency structure, we will kill the fiat money machine once and for all.

Lastly consider these words: "Under a gold standard, the amount of credit that an economy can support is determined by the economy's tangible assets, since every credit instrument is ultimately a claim on some tangible asset. But government bonds are not backed by tangible wealth, only by the government's promise to pay out of future tax revenues... A large volume of new government bonds can be sold to the public only at progressively higher interest rates. Thus, government spending under a gold standard is severely limited.... In the absence of a gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation.... This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the hidden confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process..." Moreover, the author also makes it known that the gold standard wouldn't have the prolonged economic distortions and vicious boom-and-bust cycles that fiat money systems have. Who was the author? None other than Alan Greenspan in an essay called Gold and Economic Freedom. When Greenspan, the Federal Reserve Chief, is face-to-face with Ron Paul... in the back of his head, he knows Paul is right and that the central bank is wrong!

This is a great book by a true master of storytelling. I couldn't put this book down and my wife couldn't get me to listen to anything... Give this story a try and you will be in for a ride you won't regret. This is about the frontier Alaska in 1800's and about one seriously tough guy that landed there to make his fortune and found his future... Awesome Story.

A technical analysis (written by a Phd in Economics) of a pure gold standard. Well written and very convincing.

Eichengreen and Flandreau put together a tour-de-force through the most intriguing meanders of the gold standard, a monetary system governing world trade and payments from 1870 to World War II. From the simple and powerful analysis of Hume in the eighteenth century, the book features many contributions from the most influential architects of the system. Keynes, Nurkse and Triffin speak from its pages. Also, contemporary leading economists, with the perspective that only history provides, analyze it in hindsight. A must have for the economic historian and the monetary economist.

this book is a real thriller. action packed and very enjoyable to read. I used to be Geroge Grayson's secretary at a large Philadelphia law firm and just knew George had it in him to be a great author.

This is one of the best thrillers-written-by-lawyers that I've ever read, and I've read quite a few.
The intrigue and suspense is very good. There's a mysterious sub-plot concerning an old manuscript. The pace of the story-telling is very exact and intricate. The plot is fantastic in a way, but just credible enough.

A facinating thriller that is truly hard to put down. George Grayson takes the reader on a journey through the worlds of international finance and espionage with a masterful touch. Grayson imbues his work with a level of sophistication, scholarship and attention to detail that is unusual for the genre. This book has something for everyone: attorneys will enjoy the jabs at large lawfirm life, while those with an interest in international intrigue will be well satisfied. The story begins with the murder of an associate at a large lawfirm. His sister, refusing to believe his death was a suicide, recruits a law professor (a former federal prosecutor) to help her investigate his death. Together they plunge into a web of intrigue involving the Chinese government and the search for a mysterious, lost shipment of gold.

This tome offers a comprehensive look at just about every nationally issued gold, platinum, and palladium coin. Specie are listed by country. All photographs are black & white and lifesize. I believe private issued coins are not covered. For all the listed coins, the mintage numbers, dimensions, and estimated value are provided.

All in all the most complete reference to gold, platinum, and palladium coins you will find in one book.

This is the best guide to world gold coins dated
after 1600. Before 1600, look for Friedberg's
"Gold Coins of the World" which has gold ancient coins
and gold coins up to year 1600.

Clark Smith
www.coinvault.com

This is the catalog that has it all. Solidly researched and well illustrated. It is a gold mine of information all on its own. From novice to serious collector the information is useful.

Barry Eichengreen's book Gold Fetters is a classic on the Gold Standard and the Great Depression. The cover of this one claims that it will become a classic on the international monetary system. While it's good, it certainly isn't a classic. It's a great book, but spoilt by its lack of breadth.

Globalizing Capital is full of details and gives readers a terrific account of how mainstream exchange rates were managed (or weren't) in the period from 1870 to 1997. Each of the four main chapters is self contained (1870-1914, 1918-1944, 1944-1973, 1973-1997).

Globalizing Capital has two broad threads. Firstly, the only periods in recent history when exchange rates have been stable have occurred when there have been a) high levels of international co-operation or b) periods when governments have been able to choose between high capital mobility and extending democracy. Trying to court both the masses and international traders has often been the trigger for banking and currency crises.

The second theme is the choice between fixed and floating regimes. The world nowadays is characterised by instantaneous communications and highly mobile capital. Small countries can chose to float and large groups with deep interlinks can form monetary unions, but the rest are faced with increasingly unpleasant choices. As capital becomes more mobile, the choices faced by those left in the middle will become even more perilous.

While the theoretical line is flawless, the content isn't. Globalizing Capital is extremely G7-centred and gives little if any indication that there was a world outside the North Atlantic until Japan emerged in the 1960s. There is little mention of the history of colonial currency boards prior to Hong Kong in the early 1980s, no attempt to tackle the issues thrown up by recent debt crises in Latin America and nothing on transition countries in Eastern Europe and Asia who dispensed with central planning and multiple exchange rates in the 1990s.

This book is not for the casual reader. However, we do recommend it strongly to anyone interested in understanding the relationship between global politics and international economics. Our consulting staff uses it often when discussing pricing policies and long-range financial planning with experienced and sophisticated exporters. John R. Jagoe, Director, Export Institute.

Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System is better described by its subtitle than its title, but even that fails to suggest just how up-to-the-minute it is. This book really provides a crucial key for unlocking the puzzles of today's global financial crisis. It tells the whole story of how the gold standard worked, how the Bretton Woods system worked -- and why and how they stopped working. If you wonder what the differences between floating and fixed exchange rates really are, this book will tell you, in all dimensions. It shows very clearly that the international financial crisis we see today is a great deal like what has happened at some times in the past, and it explains what worked, what didn't, and why in the past in dealing with similar crises. The author's entirely non-ideological -- where there are two intellectually-respectable sides to an issue, he presents both, explains why he comes down as he does, and tells you where to look for more information. The book is brief (about 200 pages), well and clearly written, and doesn't assume that you know much about economics or banking. There's a nice glossary in the back which explains all those mysterious terms you hear about these days. I understand that the new paperback edition has been updated to carry the story right up through the Asia crisis.

W. D. O'Neil

This book has a clever name, but is hardly the "Brewmaster's Bible" (unless he means to say you need FAITH to use this book to brew). Of its 400 pages, 300 are recipes. Much of the other 100 pages consists of reference tables, while only a few poorly organized sections explain concepts or tell how to brew.

Better to get the Papazian book (for beginners) or Greg Noonan and Ray Daniels books (for advanced brewers).

An excellent reference. I haven't worked up to all-grain yet, but the wealth of information on yeasts, hops, styles, adjuncts, you name it, is golden! The recipes are, in my opinion, nearly useless as they seem to be culled from can labels and extract kits, have bad advice (as someone has already noted) that directly contradict Snyder's instructions, and often have bizarre or proprietary items in the list of ingredients. Marty Nachel's Dummies recipies are much better. Actually, the two books complement each other nicely.

Best part of the book: the table of style components. Very handy for constructing a recipe; grain, extracts, water, yeast. Fabulous!

This book goes into every aspect of brewing, giving fantastic reference charts for hops, yeasts, beer styles, grains, carbonation, etc. I refer to this book every time I brew. This is not some lame homebrewing recipe book, that are a dime a dozen. This is the only book I use over and over-- the rest of my books gather dust on the shelf.

I'm taking the MCAT in April and am also enrolled in a Princeton Review prep course and the primary reason I bought this book was that I wanted more practice materials. I read a lot of the online reviews, and almost all of them spoke of how great the practice tests were so I bought it.

DO NOT BE DECEIVED. While the tests may be good (in the sense that they're something to practice on), I immediately noticed several flaws in the design, particularly in the Verbal section (which I want the most practice in). First off, the verbal passages are not numbered. Not only is this annoying, it forces the writers to NOT include any questions that refer to a specific word or sentence BY LINE NUMBER (Which the MCAT DOES. Note that the MCAT DOES HAVE numbered passages). Occasionally you will, however, come across a question that says something like, "The word fiord most likely refers to..." This type of question is difficult to answer without a referencing line number which the word may be found on (which I alluded to earlier) since you will not only need to scour for the word but then to re-read the surrounding sentences to figure out what context the word is used in. This is a waste of your time.

Second, several of the answer choices say something like A and C are correct. This is NOT realistic as the MCAT NEVER has answer choices like this. Also, there is a noticable lack of questions that ask which of these statements MOST WEAKEN/STRENGTHEN the author's claims. These types of questions ARE on the MCAT, but very few are found in these practice exams.

Also there always seems to be at least one or two answer choices that are blatantly obvious (that they are INCORRECT). While the real MCAT does have stupid answer choices much of the time, they usually aren't quite as bad as some of the answer choices here.

Basically I'm saying that all these factors put together will lead to an unrealistic practice exam where the results may be flawed. That's not to say the educational material in the beginning parts of the book isn't good (I haven't looked through that), but the verbal sections of these practice exams are not very good.

I got my April scores back recently, as well as my acceptance to nine of eleven schools and I owe the mainstay of my preparation to this book. Don't forget to get the AAMC's admissions requirements book; it is also very helpful. The only way to know how realistic (not perfect, but very realistic) these exams are is to practice with AAMC materials and to write the real exam. These tests can't be compared to Princeton Review exams, etc. You need to compare them with the real thing, after you've written the real thing. I have done this, and I've found the exams in this book to be very similar to the real MCAT.

to my surprise, this book is actually pretty good. The materials in the book are quite concise, too general, but the practice tests are excellent. Just the three practice tests alone are worth the price. The science review sections, however, could be more detailed. In addition, the author's high opinions of himself make this book somewhat annoying to read.