This book discusses several popular crisis origin theories, such as the failure of monetary policy, abuse of financial derivatives, failure of supervision, the global economy imbalance, the imbalance of the American economic structure, and so-called "excessive" saving in emerging economies. We find that the recent financial crisis is closely linked to the operation of the dollar standard, and we also study its inherent vulnerability, and that of the US monetary policy. Finally, we conclude that the operation of the dollar standard was a primary cause of the financial crisis.