The Dollar Meltdown: Surviving the Coming Currency Crisis with Gold, Oil, and Other Unconventional Investments

by Charles Goyette

Book Overview

The New York Times bestseller-an investment book for the coming age of high inflation. On the heels of the most recent economic crisis, America is headed toward another: high inflation and dollar... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1591842840
• ISBN13: 9781591842842
• Release Date: October 2009
• Publisher: Portfolio
• Length: 248 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.5" x 9.3"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Diagnosis and Prescriptions

Charles Goyette's book is a combination of a history lesson, an economics lesson, and investment advice, based on the premise that the US dollar is about to start rapidly losing value due to our debt load and reckless monetary creation. An adherent of the so-called "Austrian school" of economics (other modern-day proponents include Peter Schiff, Jim Rogers, and Ron Paul), Goyette details how bad our economic and fiscal situations are, gives a brief sketch of how and why it got so bad, and then gives detailed investment advice on how to avoid going down with a sinking currency. In short, his advice is heavy on commodities, whose prices can be expected to rise as the dollar falls. The book is well-written, both easy and entertaining to read. I highly recommend it and Peter Schiff's CRASH PROOF. They're very similar in their analysis and somewhat similar (though not identical) in their investment advice. If you read both of them, though, I think you'll get at least a few ideas for how to go against the conventional wisdom in order to survive -- and even profit -- from a collapsing greenback.

Crack Up Boom

To say that author and radio show host Charles Goyette is bearish on the US dollar would be a gross understatement. According to Goyette, the fallacy of "energy independence," the bumper-crop the Treasury is printing in US dollars, and vote-buying on the Hill are just a few on the list. But it's the US deficit that is the highest on his list. "The real level of the national debt is over $100 trillion - it's an amount of money that can never be paid off. The only thing the government can do is print a lot more money." Paper money was created as a convenience, a claim-check on the gold, but there's nothing behind it anymore. "One day, those who are paid in $US will realize that they aren't worth anything. Look at gold over $1,000. The price of gold today is a referendum on the quality and quantity of the paper money." Inflation Then Hyperinflation A "bumper crop" is one where there is an over-abundance of corn, for example. There is so much corn, that each kernel is worth very little. That's what's happening to the value of the US dollar with the amount of them coming off the printing presses at the Treasury. "The paper currency is a declining asset and as that happens people will convert it to something of tangible worth, such as hard assets. Paper money can be printed with no cost to the politicians." When that happens, prices of raw materials and hard assets will rise in an inflationary environment. "Sooner or later, everyone is going to realize that the only way we can pay back one bond is to issue another one and you have a situation where you're using MasterCard to pay your Visa." That's when Goyette thinks we'll see what Mises called the "crack-up boom," hyperinflation and the demise of the exchange economy. Higher Crude Prices Peak oil may be the new norm, not an outlier event. "When Nixon took us off the Gold Standard, the price of Crude Oil quadrupled. Ten years after that it was up 1,000 %." All because there was nothing backing the dollar. If the dollar continues its slide, you'll see crude prices going higher, "the current Administration is on a course to tank the dollar." According Nobel winning Economist Joe Stiglitz, the cost of the Iraq war was $3 trillion and could go as high as $5 trillion, yet the first foreign nation to strike an oil deal with Iraq was China. "They are acting like Capitalists all over the world," said Goyette, "and they didn't spend $2 in Iraq." That does not bode well for Americans - even while our summer driving patterns are as predictable as colder weather in the winter. Goyette also does not believe that the concept of energy independence is nothing more than a fantasy. "Every President since Nixon has been ringing that bell. Carter gave us the Department of Energy (DOE) and they've managed to spend $50 billion over the years and they not created a single drop of oil." The Dollar Meltdown include several chapters on how Americans can preserve their wealth and personal sovereignty by converting th

The Dollar Meltdown

A very sobering and well researched book. This is not light reading but combined with recent writings by Thomas Sowell would make a great start for an economics library. It gives good suggestions in how to survive the coming economic storm.

Perfect Timing

Charles Goyette has done his readers a great service with this timely book on the current financial crisis and how to best prepare for the worst that is yet to come. The book is organized into four sections: I. Where We Are II. How We Got There III. What Happens Next IV. What to Do Goyette has done his homework, with a wide range of facts, figures, and historical information not often found among the mainstream media and politicians. The section on the true amount of America's debt burden should be a frightening wake-up call for any American concerned about the economic future of this country. But unlike a lot of doom-and-gloom books, Goyette ends on a positive note on how to protect your finances through investing in gold, silver, oil and other commodities. Highly recommended.

Excellent Guidance

Charles Goyette is a long-time radio talk show host who is honest and free of dogma. The same can be said for this book. His advice is obviously correct, given that the price of gold is up 98-percent in the last 12 months. Like most people in this country, I liked the feeling of a booming economy and have trouble facing the reality of the recession. But Charles is a good guide for what is, not for what was.