At the height of the European sovereign debt crisis, the European Central Bank decided to purchase distressed European government bonds. Even worse, and more importantly, the ECB is providing direct support of several hundred billions of euros to troubled banks via its normal monetary policy...

Given the shortcomings of the current responses to the sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone, the author proposes utilising national gold reserves as collateral for government debt. Gold backing would be quite attractive to bond investors and would significantly ease the burden of high sovereign...

1. Why Another Book about Money? -- 2. Imagine a World Without Money -- 3. A Brief History of Money -- 4. Saving, Lending, Borrowing, and the Banking Sector -- 5. Central Banks, Monetary Policy, and the Economy -- 6. The Financial Crisis of 2007-2009 and the Great Recession -- 7. Economic Growth...