Euro Crash is a unique analysis of the European Monetary Union, arguing that it was not sub-optimal currency areas or profligate government spending but instead fatal flaws in monetary design and an appalling series of policy mistakes by the European Central Bank that lead to the current and ongoing Eurozone crisis.
Fiat currency central banks claim to fight the inflation they cause, and likewise to offset the financial instability and systemic risk they create. The depreciation of the currencies they issue at will often cause falls in foreign exchange value, goods and services inflation, or asset price inflations. Of these, asset price inflations are the most insidious, for while they last they are highly popular, leading people to think they are growing rich and to run up their debt. When the asset inflations collapse, the central banks can come as the fire department to the fire they stoked. Nobody is better at diagnosing and dissecting these central bank games than Brendan Brown, whether it is the Federal Reserve ( The Global Curse of the Federal Reserve ) or the European Central Bank - this book, Euro Crash . It will give you a healthy boost in your scepticism about those who pretend to be the Platonic guardians of the financial system.' - Alex J. Pollock, Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute, Washington, DC; former president and chief executive officer, Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago.
'The majority of economic analysts, especially those in financial markets, follow governments, central banks and international institutions in trusting to large-scale macroeconomic forecasts...Brendan Brown...belongs to the select band of commentators who prefer to derive their analysis from the market prices of key variables. For this reason alone he deserves our attention.' - The Financial Times '...an insightful little book...' - Welling@weeden.com