Detlev S. Schlichter

I read this book as research for my upcoming novel The Internet President: None of the Above. I was researching the economics of a total collapse of the global economy, a backdrop of my book. So far my favorite book in this category is Deep Freeze about the collapse of Iceland.

Schlichter uses a valid educational approach of layering. He starts with a simple abstraction and adds more elements. He assumes he's proven his point, but that wasn’t always the case. He follows the standard trajectory of these sorts of books, starting with the history of paper money (from Chinese paper money and later European gold smiths) and the resulting disasters. I really enjoyed his coverage of that section. He rightly points out the consistently tragic history of paper money. I’m not sure if I agree about his reinterpretation of the Great Depression, but it was well presented.

I didn’t enjoy his more abstract economics sections as much. I would have preferred more concrete examples than talking about 150,000 units of ‘p’. How about widgets, at least?

He placed a lot of importance on the time preference of consumers (willingness to spend later instead of now, like marshmallow experiment in psychology, or savers). That seems to be the path to true prosperity. If all people were given 10% more prices would rise 10%. Only in the complete abstract. People aren't arbitrage machines. Most humans would still go off nominal valuations until the changes got large or frequent.

He does make good points like lowering interest rates tend to go to recipients who were marginally unprofitable under the previous rates. Otherwise, they would already have loans. That explains the malinvestments that happen in booms that has to be cleared out in busts. However, in that same section, when talking about money pumping by central banks vs. Holistic savings, he writes: “The lowering of interest rates on the loan market has fooled entrepreneurs into thinking that consumers have decided to consume less and save more.” So he’s telling me that business people are fooled by the actions of the Fed? The reality is quite the opposite. Businesses play along as long as the music lasts.

Like many of the books on this topic, he seems to be a libertarian goldbug. See my none of the above bookshelf for more books on this topic if you want a more in-depth comparison.… (más)