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Showdown: Der Kampf um Europa und unser Geld
Dirk Müller - "Mr. Dax", Bestsellerautor, Deutschlands populärster Wirtschaftserklärer - schildert den zweiten Akt des Währungs- und Wirtschaftsdramas, das seinen Schauplatz längst von den USA nach Europa verlagert hat. Er rekapituliert die fundamentalen Fehlentscheidungen bei der Konstruktion des Euro, zeigt auf, welche Triebkräfte am Werk waren, wer Profit daraus zog und wer heute ein massives Interesse am Zerfall eines starken europäischen Währungs- und Wirtschaftsraumes hat. Denn die aktuelle Krise ist nicht nur das Ergebnis maßloser Staatsschulden, sie ist auch Ausdruck eines amerikanisch-europäischen Wirtschaftskrieges, der hinter den Kulissen tobt.
Müller zeigt, welche Möglichkeiten Europa und Deutschland offenstehen, er benennt Chancen und Gefahren und gibt Hinweise, wie man sein Geld, seine Altersvorsorge, seine Anlagen bestmöglich durch die sich zu einem dramatischen Höhepunkt hinaufschraubende Krise bringen kann.
©2013 Droemersche Verlagsanstalt; (P)2013 Audible GmbH
Müller zeigt, welche Möglichkeiten Europa und Deutschland offenstehen, er benennt Chancen und Gefahren und gibt Hinweise, wie man sein Geld, seine Altersvorsorge, seine Anlagen bestmöglich durch die sich zu einem dramatischen Höhepunkt hinaufschraubende Krise bringen kann.
©2013 Droemersche Verlagsanstalt; (P)2013 Audible GmbH
272 pages, Hardcover
First published April 25, 2013
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39 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 19, 2013
Well, every once in a while I abandon the best english language books I can find and give german language books another try, hoping to encounter one of the objective type, filled with facts and information and less with ideology and propaganda (usually of a statist-socialist central planning lean I'm afraid). I was incredibly excited at the beginning, as he seemed to be have done serious research, knew a lot of stuff that you rarely hear in mainstream media so I was very excited and looking forward to praising this book to high heavens. But then came the overly long section about greece (wasn't expecting it here and though interesting don't consider it that relevant). And then it got worse with talk of "humanist ideologies" and "european values" (in the sense of things for which it's worth taking freedom away from people): by the end of the book it was clear to me that the author is of the camp that wants to give more power to the state so it can spend more. They of course always argue it's for the good of the people, but the state can only spend what it took (with threat or actual act of force) from the people. Yet for some reason they never seem to go in that direction of taking less instead of giving more (after taking even more). Presumably after praising people a lot (and i do love his positive wordings at places) he still doesn't trust people to save and invest in the things they value, but would rather a powerful state do it for them, presumably because he considers people to dumb to do the kind of things he values. He never considers the fact that the people who save are also investing, except in a different thing, and maybe a different better time than what he'd like. His complex examples how spending money creates prosperity are very much the same broken window fallacy that was dismissed about by Frédéric Bastiat centuries ago.
For example of the statist view in one phrase he condemns evil speculators & banks who gamble with people's savings, and a few paragraphs later he condemns people saving their money and wants them to gamble it, but of course to his pet projects, proposing ideas such as the states gambling in the names of the people or making laws so that the pension funds do it (equivalent). To this purpose he defines renewable energy investments as absolute sure things even though others are of a different opinion and even tragic experiences in the field. Therefore he wants to take away from the people the freedom to save their money, but instead their states/Eu be able to gamble them on such "sure thing" great infrastructure projects. Those who've seen some of the great concrete abandoned buildings of the URSS might have a different perspective about the good knowledge of the state of investing in great things for the future. I mean sure, a road may be better than no road, but is it better than what a few thousands/millions of people would have done with that money otherwise?
That being said the future he proposes is not quite as bad as full on socialism/state absolute control, he still has a (smaller) amount of respect for people's freedoms and incentives to improve their lives (except the most skilled and productive of them who he wants to punish in the name of equality), and at least his proposed state projects are more in the direction of energy, which is still a better direction than others (though not better if time should show other energy solutions might be better and history is quite ruthless in showing the failures of states to invest exactly because they lack the profit motive he so condemns in corporations). Also among many dangerous statist redistributive ideas every once in a while he also supports ideas that my research points do indeed lead to the wellbeing of people (such as his sections praising some amount of regional solutions with local freedoms). All in all though I wouldn't particularly recommend this book because though there's a lot of knowlege and research in there it's very deeply intermingled with very smartly and positively formulated possibly dangerous ideas. Well, I don't mean dangerous as in directly but more as in partially impoverishing people. The "middle way" he sustains seems very much to me not of putting away with the parasites but having smaller parasites, with IMHO predictable results: a creature with a medium sized parasite will surely be better off than the one with a bigger parasite, though worse off than the one with no parasite.
What is interesting is how much the book deals not with the world of prosperity economics where everybody's slice of the pie grows as the pie is grown but with the political economics where one slice can only be made bigger at the expense of the others. I believe this is indeed a real world too, not my preferred one, but real, and as such it's interesting the author ocasionaly raising the old roman "Cui bono?" question, and portraying the tensions between the camps of US, EU, Asia & the petrol nations. Though i've tried to understand what leads to the best prosperity in the world of course it is true that a lot of the history in the world is also made by force in this way, some stealing being done under the cover of high ideals while others more honest but also often more brutal simply for power, and for every hard working man and woman, skilled craftsmen and business owner there are also many saboteurs, soldiers, conquerors and thieves... and they too play a role in the world. Anyway, I'm ranting too long here. What I meant to say it was interesting that it had some geopolitics & strategical elements in the book too.
For example of the statist view in one phrase he condemns evil speculators & banks who gamble with people's savings, and a few paragraphs later he condemns people saving their money and wants them to gamble it, but of course to his pet projects, proposing ideas such as the states gambling in the names of the people or making laws so that the pension funds do it (equivalent). To this purpose he defines renewable energy investments as absolute sure things even though others are of a different opinion and even tragic experiences in the field. Therefore he wants to take away from the people the freedom to save their money, but instead their states/Eu be able to gamble them on such "sure thing" great infrastructure projects. Those who've seen some of the great concrete abandoned buildings of the URSS might have a different perspective about the good knowledge of the state of investing in great things for the future. I mean sure, a road may be better than no road, but is it better than what a few thousands/millions of people would have done with that money otherwise?
That being said the future he proposes is not quite as bad as full on socialism/state absolute control, he still has a (smaller) amount of respect for people's freedoms and incentives to improve their lives (except the most skilled and productive of them who he wants to punish in the name of equality), and at least his proposed state projects are more in the direction of energy, which is still a better direction than others (though not better if time should show other energy solutions might be better and history is quite ruthless in showing the failures of states to invest exactly because they lack the profit motive he so condemns in corporations). Also among many dangerous statist redistributive ideas every once in a while he also supports ideas that my research points do indeed lead to the wellbeing of people (such as his sections praising some amount of regional solutions with local freedoms). All in all though I wouldn't particularly recommend this book because though there's a lot of knowlege and research in there it's very deeply intermingled with very smartly and positively formulated possibly dangerous ideas. Well, I don't mean dangerous as in directly but more as in partially impoverishing people. The "middle way" he sustains seems very much to me not of putting away with the parasites but having smaller parasites, with IMHO predictable results: a creature with a medium sized parasite will surely be better off than the one with a bigger parasite, though worse off than the one with no parasite.
What is interesting is how much the book deals not with the world of prosperity economics where everybody's slice of the pie grows as the pie is grown but with the political economics where one slice can only be made bigger at the expense of the others. I believe this is indeed a real world too, not my preferred one, but real, and as such it's interesting the author ocasionaly raising the old roman "Cui bono?" question, and portraying the tensions between the camps of US, EU, Asia & the petrol nations. Though i've tried to understand what leads to the best prosperity in the world of course it is true that a lot of the history in the world is also made by force in this way, some stealing being done under the cover of high ideals while others more honest but also often more brutal simply for power, and for every hard working man and woman, skilled craftsmen and business owner there are also many saboteurs, soldiers, conquerors and thieves... and they too play a role in the world. Anyway, I'm ranting too long here. What I meant to say it was interesting that it had some geopolitics & strategical elements in the book too.
November 21, 2025
schwachsinn
January 4, 2015
Dieses Buch gibt Hinweise auf die geopolitischen Hintergründe der griechischen Finanzkrise und den Ukrainekonflikt.
Die Beschreibung der Zustände ist anschaulich. Stil und Sprache sind lebendig.
Die Schlussfolgerungen, die der Autor aus seinen Analysen zieht, muss man nicht teilen, aber darauf legt er keinen Wert. Müller will vielmehr die Leserinnen und Leser ermuntern, hinter die Kulissen zu schauen und ein Verständnis dafür zu entwickeln, wem dieser oder jener Vorgang nützt.
Die geopolitische Rolle der EU hält der Autor für unterentwickelt.
Die Beschreibung der Zustände ist anschaulich. Stil und Sprache sind lebendig.
Die Schlussfolgerungen, die der Autor aus seinen Analysen zieht, muss man nicht teilen, aber darauf legt er keinen Wert. Müller will vielmehr die Leserinnen und Leser ermuntern, hinter die Kulissen zu schauen und ein Verständnis dafür zu entwickeln, wem dieser oder jener Vorgang nützt.
Die geopolitische Rolle der EU hält der Autor für unterentwickelt.
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May 24, 2015
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