Failing Currency
TimeWatch Editorial
March 28, 2016
James Richards, the author of the book, “The Death of Money: The Collapse of the International Monetary System” warns that the demise of the dollar is coming, and that its impact will be global. The book was published in 2014, and is a detailed argument of his position. In the introduction of his book, the author says:
“The Death of Money is about the demise of the dollar. By extension, it is also about the potential collapse of the international monetary system because, if confidence in the dollar is lost, no other currency stands ready to take its place as the world’s reserve currency. The dollar is the linchpin. If it fails, the entire system fails with it, since the dollar and the system are one and the same. As fearsome a prospect as this dual collapse may be, it looks increasingly inevitable for all the reasons one will find in the pages to come.” James Richards, “The Death of Money: The Collapse of the International Monetary System”
It must be understood that James Richards is by no means alone in his warning of a coming collapse; as a matter of fact there are quite a number of well known bankers, investors and wealthy individuals who have said the same. What is interesting about these predictions of global economic collapse is that they link with the Biblical prediction of James in chapter 5. James, of course, is describing the time when judgment is poured out. It is therefore interesting that Mr. Richards describes a catastrophic event that falls in line with a time of absolute and total global impact.
“Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned [and] killed the just; [and] he doth not resist you. Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” James 5: 1-8
The death of Money reaches back in history to a time of financial uncertainty. It was a time when a substitute currency was forwarded to mitigate the falling global financial system.
“Few Americans in our time recall that the dollar nearly ceased to function as the world’s reserve currency in 1978. That year the Federal Reserve dollar index declined to a distressingly low level, and the U.S. Treasury was forced to issue government bonds denominated in Swiss francs. Foreign creditors no longer trusted the U.S. dollar as a store of value. The dollar was losing purchasing power, dropping by half from 1977 to 1981; U.S. inflation was over 50 percent during those five years. Starting in 1979, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had little choice but to mobilize its resources to issue world money (Special Drawing Rights, or SDRs). It flooded the market with 12.1billion SDRs to provide liquidity as global confidence in the dollar declined.” James Richards, “The Death of Money: The Collapse of the International Monetary System”
Similarly, we have been doing the same for the past few years. We have called it Quantitative Easing. What is that you ask? It is the printing of at least 85 billion dollars a month to buttress a failing economy. What will be the next step? Can this printing continue? Will it not completely cause the devaluing of the currency? Of course it will. Soon we will have to deal with the inevitable. Question is, are we prepared?
Cameron A. Bowen
