The Money Bubble Paperback – January 2, 2014

There are many calls by economists for the next big market crash, and few of them go as far as Turk and Rubino who are calling for a complete, world-wide, collapse. It's truly frightening stuff to read. They do a commendable job of tallying all the areas of the market that can very well lead to market failure. I'm not an economist or involved in the financial world in any way, but I do like to read as much as I can about money and markets. Regrettably, too much of what the authors have written rings true when compared to my additional reading. I've been telling a close group of friends for two years now to pull their money from the market. I've done this because nothing about it makes sense. How can the US print money the way it has and still keep inflation down. Well, if you read this book, you'll learn that it's a shell game that hides it. I've also pointed often to bank CD rates. They've been next to zero for years, since 2008, and that is as close to anything a person will get in terms of how financial companies feel about the market. They don't want to borrow your money because it's not worth much and they've no real (tangible) investments to make with it.I thank the authors for presenting the information they have. I liked in particular that they were able to show that in a complete breakdown scenario, you basically can't escape the fallout. Holding cash, which I've done in the hopes of entering a severely lowered (not insolvent) market, won't help, betting against the market via ETFs won't work either. That's frightening to your bones stuff! Not "fun" as one reviewer described this book. (I'm betting there are a few shill reviews here, but in this case that's fine. Read this and don't sleep because of it but at least you won't be shocked by what happens.)Where I have some reservations and withheld the final star is in the authors' choice of picking the year this will happen. Many other economists who nailed one crash before have done the same and been wildly wrong. Dent is one in particular who's called for a crash over and over and had to move his date around. Yes, the Government and World leaders keep printing money to off-set what should have happened, so it's not their fault per se, but why not pick a window of time instead? Another, smaller, issue was with their plan to profit from the collapse. I'd have liked a little more hand holding or specifics on that front. Example, they say short specific companies and offer only vague ideas on which sectors that might be. Really, if you read closely enough, they only offer one solution, one item to buy. Anyone with half knowledge of what people turn to in a panic market know already.Another issue I have is with the light manner in which they cover possible outcomes of a total market failure. There could be martial law, world war, a depression to make the Depression look innocent, etc. They treat as lightly our possible recovery. We'll all be living forever and technology will make the US great again. As if to say, this is all a speed bump folks. No worries. Oddly, I am hopeful that we're on the cusp of great tech breakthrough that will benefit all, but a full world market collapse would really push that back or even off the plate, in my opinion.I'd have loved to have given this four and a half stars. I appreciate that the authors weren't hawking their goods every other page. You know these books? The end is coming and you can escape it if you visit our website or buy our newsletter. There's an old idea for this: If they know the secret to getting rich, and it's that easy, they're not sharing it with you.Bottom line: Read this and hope the authors are wrong.

I greatly enjoyed the book. It was well written, entertaining, informative and thought provoking...but I have a hard time believing the authors' vision of the next ten years.Yes we are in debt up to our eyeballs, yes we are printing money like mad, yes governments lie about statistics and other things...but I'm not sure it is going to lead to the crack-up boom as described and I'm not sure catastrophic collapse is a possibility within the next few years or so.The chapter on how the most basic US government statistics of unemployment and inflation were understated was fascinating. I knew about them, but the implications were not clear until this book.The segment on how the gold market was manipulated was well written and I had never heard of it until this book, frankly. That was eye opening.Fractional reserved banking was a mortal sin in this book as was central banking in general. Von Mises, Rothbard, Ron Paul et al were weaved throughout the pages. I don't quite buy into their black and white view of the world. Yes I want smaller and more efficient government and yes I want the Constitution to drive many decisions politically. But the Constitution was made by men and wasn't perfect (remember 3/5ths).That said, when you predict the end of an era---in this case a dollar denominated one---there are times when I thought the authors went overboard. The Epilogue reads like an Ayn Rand novel to me. No, I don't think precious metals will lead us to smaller banks and the end of our military empire.Interestingly, the main purpose of the book was to provide investment advice. All the material discussed above was primer for understanding how to get wealthy during the coming collapse of the dollar. Unload your bonds, sell volatility, selectively short the market and of course buy gold and silver. Maybe, but I remain unconvinced.I recommend the book, but you determine for yourself whether you want to go their route or not.

I'm contributing this because I have benefitted a great deal from other people's book reviews. This is an extremely well written discussion concerning the historical and well as current events in the financial and monetary world. Most of this was in the last book, and also available on the internet. However, it all becomes a very academic exercise if there is no good solution. The disappointing part is that there is precious little usable new information concerning what a person can do to protect themselves. I would have hoped at this late date we would have more concrete guidance on how to mitigate the possible damage. There are too many authors that consider the solution to a risky situation to be doing something that is even more risky to counter it. Great, if your timing is perfect. But if you are that good at timing markets, you are probably going to do OK anyway. The other thing is while I think that you can have somewhat of a handle on the economic situation the political / legal situation is the wild card and we need to know more about this factor. Finally, there is the time factor. Yes, the sun will eventually go supernova, but it may not do that for quite a while, if you get my drift. Meanwhile, life happens. In particular a more balanced view to the investing approaches might be useful, including more of a discussion concerning possible disadvantages.I would recommend the book to anyone who is not yet familiar with this subject, or who hasn't read the previous book. It might make a good gift.

I thought this book was fantastic for beginner and intermediate investors. If you've read many books on the banking system, commodities and the history of gold and fiat currency you might find that this is just a revision of that. However, when I bought this I was clueless about these topics and found this book amazing. Honestly I read it twice in a week and didn't get bored at all. They make a great case (with data) for the collapse of the dollar at least and why the tried and tested currency of gold/silver is more important than ever at least in the last 100 years. However I would take it with a pinch of salt because as far as I know these guys are precious metals merchants so they are biased in their exuberance for a bullish future in precious metals. In my case I do agree with them though and they back that exuberance with data, so overall 100% for this book.

Great read and insight into the money system and the problems we are headed for. If you are at all interested into how the world works and wish to protect yourself and any money or savings you have this is a must read.

One to make you change the way you think about money!

Pretty good over all decent take on fiat currency. Having read it 6 years after publication it's a bit off the mark on a fair few predictions but you can see the gold bugs world view much clearer after reading this

A must read for anyone who is serious about finding out how the global financial system works and what you might be able to do to protect yourself from the debasement of fiat currency.