I’m very pleased with my new book, What’s Wrong With Money? The Biggest Bubble of All, which was published this month by John Wiley & Sons. I am also pleased that TalkMarkets has asked to publish this small snippet, from the start of Part III of the book. What’s Wrong With Money? is about, at its root, the structure of money itself and why our money – backed by nothing but trust that someone else will accept it at a reasonably-predictably level in exchange for something we need – is at risk if lazy or incompetent central bankers and other policymakers play fast and loose with that trust. As I say in the Preface: “Never before has so much ridden on trust. And never before has that trust been so abused, and so stretched. What’s wrong with money? Nothing, and everything.”

In the book, Part I is concerned with what money is, how it is distinct from the concepts of currency and wealth, and why we need money in the first place. In Part II, I write about how the actions of fiscal and monetary agents in response to the global credit crisis have impacted us today, and how those actions narrow the set of potential future outcomes. In Part III, which this excerpt introduces, I tell you how this should affect the way you arrange your investments, today. I hope you like this look inside the beginning of Part III.

Book Excerpt: