The Collapse of the Dollar and How to Profit from It: Make a Fortune by Investing in Gold and Other Hard Assets

First, it should be noted that the author sells gold. That said, this book is not a promotion for his business entities. But he does have a vested interest in seeing that gold is sold --- especially physical gold.The author gives a very riveting history of gold, which explains why the handsome metal is so important and why it is not related to any stock or bond or currency.The author predicts the housing problems we now have --- to a large extent. Remember, this book was written in 2004, well before our current crises. He does a superb job of looking into the future. In addition, he predicts, correctly, the spurt that gold will take in the "near future" and that future is here.He suggests how much gold to buy and what kind to buy. This is very useful because there are a ton of options out there. Believe me! You can get all confused. And dealers are of little help in that they're trying to make as much money as they can. You need to be careful in who you buy gold from and learn to ask lots of questions before you buy.Determine first why you want to own gold and then make your purchases based on that.This is a very useful book and the historical value alone is worth reading. But, if you're thinking of investing in gold, you should read this book.It does offer advice in other areas. But very little. I was slightly disappointed that more advice wasn't given in other areas but, since the author is a specialist in gold, that should be expected.He also explains that investing in Gold ETFs is not the same as physical gold. For example, when you sell in a year, you pay 28% tax! With physical gold, this is not the case. To that, I would add that if a national emergency happens (such as happened 9/11) the exchanges will close and you can't sell anything on paper. You could, however, sell or use physical gold.Here is some useful information on this subject from [...]"In the last two months, the largest bullion ETF netted $[...] million in new assets, bringing the total to $7.8 billion at the end of July, according to State Street Global Advisors, the firm that runs the fund.But those eager investors may have a less-than-enthusiastic response to future tax bills if they haven't been reading the ETF's prospectus carefully.That's because unlike stocks, which receive a maximum 15% tax rate on long-term gains, profits from trading bullion (bars or coins made of gold) are treated as "collectibles" by the Internal Revenue Service and get taxed at almost double the rate.And although the GLD trades like a stock, it gets caught in the tax trap because it is backed up by holdings of gold bars, along with gold coins such as the American Eagle and the internationally popular South African krugerrand."If we are talking about collectibles, that's a maximum 28% tax rate," says Steven Melnik, director of graduate tax programs at City University of New York's Baruch College. "An unsophisticated investor could easily get lost in the shuffle, as they often do." He notes that short-term gains, which are generated from assets held less than a year, are taxed as ordinary income.Even some professionals actively involved in the bullion market aren't familiar with this aspect of the tax code."Finally, I appreciated the part where he explains that buying pre-1933 gold coins may or may not be the best route for most investors in gold. He tells us that when Roosevelt called in the gold in that year, only a tiny percentage of the gold was actually returned to the government vaults and banks. In other words, people kept their gold. (Good for them!) Just something you might consider.Gold coins with low premiums include the American Gold Eagle, the South African Krugerrand and a few others.Lots of great information here. Highly recommended.

Over the next few months we will find out value of this book. Read and prepare for what is ahead. It could be a repeat of Long Term Capital! Or worse. This book provides the information that you may need.

I like this book. The documentation is solid and the logical exposition is nearly flawless. The authors build a compelling case for restructuring one's portfolio to include a large gold component. If one scans the charts, COMEX gold has made a huge, rounding turn from 1996 to 2004. The high price of this formation is 420 and the low price 260. A measuring implication on this formation suggests an upside target price of 580, which is a potential 32% gain. [420-260=160+420=580.] Gold has completed this formation with a bullish, upside breakout. In order for gold to reach this target price, the dollar has to continue its slide to oblivion. However, there are signs that the dollar index is stabilizing and trying to climb to 90 from its current price of 83.What makes me suspicious about the fruition of the authors' thesis is that there is too much company from other writers such as Richard Duncan, Ferdinand Lips, Jim Rogers, Peter Warburton, etc. It is arguable that this book presently represents the view of the crowd rather than expressing a contrarian worldview. In my experience, real, damaging crises arrive both quickly and unannounced. Seldom do we have the luxury of time for discussing the onset and progression of a crisis through the mass media in a calm, rational manner and have the year or more it takes to write and publish books about how to survive and prosper from the crisis. As a matter of fact, there is much evidence that when books about impending crises become available to the mass markets, the danger is substantially past. Irrationality - not rationality - is the ding an sich of financial markets!Financial markets are discounting mechanisms that make the best use of forecasts, from all information which is known, to augur the likely level and trend of profits from nine to eighteen months in advance. What we read on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, Investor's Business Daily, or the Financial Times hardly qualifies as being news which can move the markets because the markets have already anticipated the impact of the events before the stories appeared in print.To make matters worse, if the authors' thesis is correct and comes to pass, it is not likely that the average investor would have the prescience, ability, or resources necessary for weathering the financial storm - even armed with this book! A financial panic of this magnitude would have the most dire geopolitical consequences. Playing with numbers would be futile. The only safe harbor would be a move of one's person and possessions to some island of stability, such as Switzerland.I personally believe that the severe decree can (and will) be averted. I feel that there is still resiliance in the western tradition. Most of the ills besetting the US today can be traced to a recent history of an overstrong dollar which gave rise to the Japanese and Chinese economic miracles, a highly-promoted culture of rampant consumerism, and the misguided, suicidal "free" trade agreements of the past twenty years. I think that the changing demographics in the US will encourage saving and investment over consumption, a rationalization of the current and capital account imbalances, and a total discrediting of and revulsion from the New World Order paradigm.Don't worry - be happy!

I really enjoyed this book. The authors stick to the facts and present some disturbing conclusions about the state of the world economy and how Gold has always stood in the background as the world's reserve currency.The book is a bit short overall, but in some ways it is a blessing that they did not bulk it out with unnecessary padding like so many other financial books seem to do.I also recommend "How to Invest in Gold and Silver" by A Dunwiddie, and "Empire of Debt" by Bill Bonner.

Why are we not taught what money is at school? This book should be in every household and is very readable even if you have little or no knowledge about economics or finance.

very concise. I did not get lost in financial gibberish, which is very good. Gereral principles followed by real world examples. One of the few financial books I would actually recommend.

Great read

Other reviews here cover the book's content very well, so I don't need to go over it again. What i would do is urge everyone to read this even if you are generally sceptical of (supposed) doom and gloom financial texts (this book actually offers very practical positive solutions and strategies). This is a very well written, readable, well argued and constructive book covering one particular view of the future outcome for the US dollar which will affect us all. To date, it has been amazingly prescient and it's not over yet. Whether you agree with it or not, you should at least read it to challenge your faith in the current financial system's sustainability. I personally find that, so infrequent, or rather underreported (it's not in many peoples vested interest), are other examples of these types of crises, many are prepared to stay in their status quo bubble and believe that what's existed for decades will still be there tomorrow and forever more. This book gives a lot of historical examples and reasons for why you should question that ASAP.