This book analyses the causes and consequences of deflation. In contrast to the widespread belief that deflation would be harmful to the economy as a whole, the author argues that free market deflation is liberating and beneficial. Several myths of deflation are exposed and the reasons for the widespread deflation phobia that serves to justify expansionary monetary policy, i.e., inflation are investigated. Two historical case studies, the growth deflation in the US after the Civil War and the bank credit deflation in Germany during the Great Depression are discussed to illustrate the points made in the theoretical analysis of deflation.

How will the coming deflation affect you? What strategies will work in the deflation years ahead? Look inside for:

Today's financial and economic tribulations were a long time in the making. Many people ask, "Why didn't someone see it coming?" A New York Times bestselling book did see it coming. Over 100,000 people read it in time to protect their wealth. The book foresaw and explained the collapse in home prices, plunge in stocks, subprime debacle, liquidity crisis, the demise of Fannie and Freddie, the Federal Reserve's failure to turn the trend, and lots more. The book was Robert Prechter?s Conquer the Crash, published in early 2002, when the Dow was above 10,000 and the financial world was partying around-the-clock. Fast forward to today: the average U.S. homeowner has suffered a decline of 30% to 40% in property value. Stocks and commodities had their biggest fall since 1929-1932. Fannie Mae is a zombie corporation under the government?s protection. The Fed has pushed every button at its disposal (and then some), to no avail. If Prechter thought a whole new book would help, he'd have written one. But Conquer the Crash is a book-length forecast that's still coming true -- only some of the future has caught up with the specific predictions he published back then. There is much more to come. That means more danger, but also great opportunity. Conquer the Crash, 2nd edition offers you 188 new pages of vital information (480 pages total) plus all the original forecasts and recommendations that make the book more compelling and relevant than the day it published. In every disaster, only a very few people prepare themselves beforehand. Think about investor enthusiasm in 2005-2008, and you'll realize it's true. Even fewer people will be ready for the soon-approaching, next leg down of the unfolding depression. In this 2nd edition, Prechter gives a warning he's never had to include in 30 years of publishing -- namely, that the doors to financial safety are closing all over the world. In other words, prudent people need to act while they can. Conquer the Crash, 2nd Edition readers will receive exclusive online access to the Conquer the Crash Readers Page, where Prechter continually updates the book's recommended services and institutions.

LARGE PRINT EDITION! More at LargePrintLiberty.com It was a modern thriving economy one day, and then, suddenly, the food disappeared from the shelves, the banks closed, and the ships stopped arriving. Iceland in 2008 experienced an unprecedented economic meltdown that struck fear in the hearts of people all over the world. If it could happen here, it could happen anywhere. The economic crisis led to a political crisis, with resignations galore. The whining and wailing about the disaster continues to this day, with most commentators blaming deregulation and the free market. In Deep Freeze, economists Philipp Bagus and David Howden demonstrate that the real cause of the calamity was bad central bank policy. Rates were way too low, banks were too big to fail, housing was implicitly guaranteed, and banks were borrowing short term from abroad to finance long term bonds. The authors discuss the implications of this maturity mismatching and zero in on the central bank policies that encouraged unsound practices. They demonstrate the cause and effect without a shadow of a doubt, using vast amounts of data and a detailed sector-by-sector look at the economy of Iceland. What they find is another instance of the Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle, working itself out in a way that is customized for a time and place. Toby Baxendale writes the introducton to this story that reads like a great novel. It serves as a reminder that central banking policies aren't just about monetary arcana. They affect our lives in profound and sometimes catastrophic ways. The Iceland Freeze is one of the great historical cases that makes Mises's point. Let it always serve as a reminder of what happens when the laws of the market are papered over by politicians and central bankers. This account is likely to remain the definitive one for many years.

The first book-length work on market monetarism, written by its leading scholar. Is it possible that the consensus around what caused the 2008 Great Recession is almost entirely wrong? It’s happened before. Just as Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz led the economics community in the 1960s to reevaluate its view of what caused the Great Depression, the same may be happening now to our understanding of the first economic crisis of the 21st century. Foregoing the usual relitigating of problems such as housing markets and banking crises, renowned monetary economist Scott Sumner argues that the Great Recession came down to one thing: nominal GDP, the sum of all nominal spending in the economy, which the Federal Reserve erred in allowing to plummet. The Money Illusion is an end-to-end case for this school of thought, known as market monetarism, written by its leading voice in economics. Based almost entirely on standard macroeconomic concepts, this highly accessible text lays the groundwork for a simple yet fundamentally radical understanding of how monetary policy can work best: providing a stable environment for a market economy to flourish.

Until quite recently, the Japanese inspired a kind of puzzled awe. They had pulled themselves together from the ruin of war, built at breakneck speed a formidable array of export champions, and emerged as the world's number-two economy and largest net creditor nation. And they did it by flouting every rule of economic orthodoxy. But today only the puzzlement remains—at Japan's inability to arrest its economic decline, at its festering banking crisis, and at the dithering of its policymakers. Why can't the Japanese government find the political will to fix the country's problems? Japan's Policy Trap offers a provocative new analysis of the country's protracted economic stagnation. Japanese insider Akio Mikuni and long-term Japan resident R. Taggart Murphy contend that the country has landed in a policy trap that defies easy solution. The authors, who have together spent decades at the heart of Japanese finance, expose the deep-rooted political arrangements that have distorted Japan's monetary policy in a deflationary direction. They link Japan's economic difficulties to the Achilles' heel of the U.S. economy: the U.S. trade and current accounts deficits. For the last twenty years, Japan's dollar-denominated trade surplus has outstripped official reserves and currency in circulation. These huge accumulated surpluses have long exercised a growing and perverse influence on monetary policy, forcing Japan's authorities to support a build-up of deflationary dollars. Mikuni and Murphy trace the origins of Japan's policy trap far back into history, in the measures taken by Japan's officials to preserve their economic independence in what they saw as a hostile world. Mobilizing every resource to accumulate precious dollars, the authorities eventually found themselves coping with a hoard they could neither use nor exchange. To counteract the deflationary impact, Japanese authorities resorted to the creation of yen liabilities unrelated to production via the large

The next financial collapse will resemble nothing in history. . . . Deciding upon the best course to follow will require comprehending a minefield of risks, while poised at a crossroads, pondering the death of the dollar. The U.S. dollar has been the global reserve currency since the end of World War II. If the dollar fails, the entire international monetary system will fail with it. But optimists have always said, in essence, that confidence in the dollar will never truly be shaken, no matter how high our national debt or how dysfunctional our government. In the last few years, however, the risks have become too big to ignore. While Washington is gridlocked, our biggest rivals—China, Russia, and the oil-producing nations of the Middle East—are doing everything possible to end U.S. monetary hegemony. The potential results: Financial warfare. Deflation. Hyperinflation. Market collapse. Chaos. James Rickards, the acclaimed author of Currency Wars, shows why money itself is now at risk and what we can all do to protect ourselves. He explains the power of converting unreliable investments into real wealth: gold, land, fine art, and other long-term stores of value.