Tug of War: Today's Global Currency Crisis

by Paul Emil Erdman

In recent years, the value of the U.S. dollar has fluctuated wildly. Japanese investors have lost billions in U.S. markets, causing an almost unprecedented run on the dollar. The leaders of the world currency markets were forced to band together to push up the value of the U.S. dollar. Tug of Why You Should Care About the Global Currency Crisis is the riveting story of this flow of money around the globe and what it means for us today.In 1991, the Mexican government tied the value of the peso to the dollar. As the peso slid and almost vanished, the fortunes of the dollar waned. Investors around the world, especially the Japanese, lost confidence in the dollar, creating a soaring yen and dragging down the value of the dollar even more. Subsequent events in the world currency markets pulled the dollar in even more rogue traders lost billions on bad deals; the European Union began determining the value of its own currency; Japanese banks admitted enormous, previously concealed, losses. The tug of war continued. Paul Erdman, as well-known for his ability to predict financial markets as for his ability to write a suspenseful story, clearly explains the tangled basis and continuing strength of the currency crisis, gives his predictions about the future, and offers advice to market masters on the direction they should pursue. Significantly updated for this paperback edition, Tug of War, as compelling as any novel, is certain to be one of the most important financial books of this or any other year. Readers will not want to be left out when Erdman predicts the winner in this economic battle.

173 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Paul Emil Erdman was one of the leading business and financial writers in the United States who became known for writing novels based on monetary trends and historical facts concerning complex matters of international finance.

Erdman was born in Ontario, Canada, to American parents. He graduated from Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. He received his PhD from the University of Basel (in Switzerland). In 1958 he worked as a financial analyst for the European Coal and Steel Community. Between 1959 and 1961, he worked as an economist at the Stanford Research Institute at Menlo Park.

Erdman returned to Switzerland where in 1965, he founded and was the president of a Swiss bank - the Salik Bank. In 1969, the United California Bank in California bought a majority stake and renamed it the United California Bank in Basel. The bank collapsed after taking large losses speculating in the cocoa market. Erdman and other board members were accused of fraud and Erdman spent time in jail awaiting trial.

While in jail, he wrote his first novel - The Billion Dollar Sure Thing (1973). It received a 1974 Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best First Novel and was published in the UK as The Billion Dollar Killing. He was released on bail and fled from Switzerland. He was subsequently convicted in absentia. His second novel, the The Silver Bears (1974) was turned into a 1978 movie of the same name, starring Michael Caine. His books were well researched and contain convincing details. Despite the underlying complexity of his novels, his lucid writing style had enabled readers to learn complex concepts such as interest rate swaps, and his novels had often been bestsellers. The information in The Swiss Account is credited with providing a basis for helping track down the assets of Jewish victims of the holocaust.

Reviews

[Luc · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an excellent introduction to the foreign exchange market (Forex) and international economics. Erdman is doing an excellent job in explaining the basics of the monetary crises & currency volatility of the 1990s in the wake of the mexican pesos devaluation. Erdman also discuss the problem of the lack of confidence in the U.S. dollar. In the end, according to the author, « the United States will remain the world's dominant power, and the dollar the world's dominant currency. » (page 161). This book was published in 1996, and the subject of the dollar, including the status of the United States as a world power, is still debated today.

[Liedzeit Liedzeit · Rating 3 out of 5]

Erdman starts with the Peso Crisis and explains why the Dollar is still (written in the late 90s) the strongest currency. Nice. Maybe a bit dated.