Overview

""I urge everyone to read this important new book.""-Ron Paul, Host ofRon Paul Liberty Report Americans are facing sticker shock at every turn: from the gas pump to the grocery store and every kind of consumer service. But the eye-popping price increases are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the threat to the country's economic recovery. Inflation showers windfalls on the rich while penalizing workers, savers, retirees, small businesses, and most of Main Street economic life. New York Times bestselling author and former investment manager David A. Stockman, who served as director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Reagan, explains the roots of today's runaway inflation so investors at all levels can calibrate their financial strategies to survive and thrive despite economic uncertainty. The Great Money Bubble covers the entire economic landscape, including: Why the rising price of assets is far more dangerous than rising consumer prices The inside story on stock market manipulations and the effects of ultracheap debt Why real estate is no longer a guaranteed inflationary hedge Stockman's four-step strategy to protect your savings and portfolio After spearheading the economic policy for the Reagan Revolution, Stockman worked on Wall Street at the highest levels, and is now an adviser to professional investors. With this book, readers at all investment levels can have access to his groundbreaking financial advice.

Full Product Details

Author:   David A. Stockman
Publisher:   Humanix Books
Imprint:   Humanix Books
ISBN:  

9781630062194

ISBN 10:   1630062197
Pages:   256
Publication Date:   29 December 2022
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Temporarily unavailable  
The supplier advises that this item is temporarily unavailable. It will be ordered for you and placed on backorder. Once it does come back in stock, we will ship it out to you.

Table of Contents

"OUTLINE for INFLATION NIGHTMARE: How to Protect Your Money in the Coming Crash by David A. Stockman Part 1 Chapter 1: Washington’s Infernal Inflation Machine An economist’s definition (classical, a la Friedman): Inflation is caused by central bank money printing, not by supply and demand for goods and services in the market Inflation artificially increases the price of almost everything: goods, services, housing, stocks, other financial assets, collectibles and crypto Real world examples here Different kinds of inflation Core inflation vs. food/energy Real world examples here, story format PPI, CPI, inflation expectations, “stagflation” Real world examples here, story format What’s “normal” inflation? Is it necessary for growth? Stockman’s thesis: Massive money printing is causing massive asset inflation in the form of stock prices that are not justified by earnings and interest rates that are drastically below what is needed to cover inflation and risk of loss, and it is tying up capital for long periods of time. Chapter 2: How do normal people experience inflation? How do you know if inflation is happening? Stories > as in what an average person experiences to what happens to paycheck/dividends/savings accounts Risk-free rate lower than inflation Real world examples here, story format What happens to your paycheck when inflation runs hot Real world examples here, story format Savings rates in the age of QE Real world examples here, story format Fed’s “hedonic adjustment” to hide inflation from ordinary people Real world examples here, story format How long you have to work to buy a good, such as a house or car For instance, the average worker had to work 7,160 hours (almost four years) to buy the median home in 1971. By 2020, he had to work double that: 14,365 hours. Same was true of a new car. To buy a standard Ford Mustang Coupe, the average worker had to work 5.3 months in 1971, 8.2 months in 1997 and 10.8 months in 2020. While all that was happening, ordinary savers are barely keeping up with inflation in their paycheck while any savings they have suffer from low rates Examples and data illustrating the above, 1990s CD rates vs. today, etc Chapter 3: How to read the signs of inflation Lessons from previous period (stories, not economic theory/economic policy) How Reagan and Paul Volcker fixed the inflation disaster of the 1970s Brief history of the period Real world examples here, story format The “Great Moderation” of low inflation and growth ballyhooed by Bernanke in 2005 was a ruse. In fact, goods and services inflation was just temporarily pushed underground owing to imported deflation from China A generation of investors and savers has now lulled to sleep by artificially low inflation Chapter 4: Why inflation is a danger now For consumers, goods inflation has been artificially cheap while services inflation has taken off. As China matures, goods inflation will catch up. For investors, fiat credit has led to asset inflation, going to the top 1% as a massive, serendipitous windfall Stock valuations are an illusion of the worst kind (Stockman thesis) P/E ratios are vastly inflated...earnings haven’t increased materially since 2007 15x earnings to now 35x earnings, the result of monetary inflation Tech leaders have driven the indexes today for the most part (FAANG stock effect) Real world examples here, story format Projected capital appreciation is falling (according to Vanguard et al) and yet new market highs keep getting printed, over and over How long can the Fed keep this up, inflating the system? Inflation of asset has become institutionalized, nobody even thinks about it anymore At some point the music stops...right? Bond yields will go up, but bond prices will drop causing big capital losses When bond yields go back to normal, justification for ultra high P/E multiples will collapse, causing stock prices to adjust drastically lower So what would actually happen to a typical retiree portfolio, real world examples here, story format Similarly, financial asset inflation makes the carrying cost of debt dirt cheap, thereby encouraging households to over-borrow in order to make up for the shrinking purchasing power of their wages. Accordingly, during the past three decades, household debt in all forms has increased from $36,000 per household to $130,000 Expand on household debt examples: credit card explosion, home equity boom of 2007 Part 2 Chapter 5: The slippery slope for investors now Essentially when the Fed finally gets cornered and it becomes apparent that inflation is no longer transitory, and it has to deal with America’s $85 trillion of combined public and private debt, there will be big corrections Bond market is biggest bubble in history Stories from bond market breaks past Bond repricing will spread to the stock market When all correlations fall to zero, as in 2007, “nowhere to hide” Real world examples here, story format Investors think high stock prices are sustainable because high P/E multiples are justified by ultra-low bond yields But that will correct in the tech sector, deflating the value of the whole stock market since they have lead the growth for years Everything prices off the 10-year bond, if that’s 200 bp under inflation, can that last? It can’t Chapter 6: How to invest once inflation really takes off: how to protect hard-earned savings Inflation-proof ""real assets"" investments REITS/Real Estate Art (Alternative investments) Cryptocurrency  Commodities TIPS Growth Stocks that do well in inflationary times Banks/Financials Food Healthcare Energy Building Materials What will in fact work: The role of cash and true hedges Stick to short-term cash-type investments (T-bills, savings accounts, CDs) cash and keep as liquid as possible Cash is not trash, it will soon be treasure Gold as a hedge Buying puts (how to do this safely using funds or ETFs) Federal government is not going away Treasury bills are safe, if lower rate of return: likely 2% to 4% return once Fed is forced to let interest rates rise to check CPI inflation Chapter 7: What Investments to Avoid and Why Avoid meme stocks, tech stocks, flavor of the month trading, crypto schemes Bubble thinking is a symptom of underlying sickness Chapter 8: Debt Strategy What to do with any debt you might have/credit cards, mortgage, college loans, medical bills  "

Reviews

Praise for The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America by David Stockman New York Times Bestseller His rhetoric in a recent New York Times op-ed piece ignites like Seal Team Six coming at you, flash grenades exploding, assault weapons blazing. No wonder he triggers wild angry, hatred and revenge. Yes, he's a truth-teller. And truth hurts, flushing out his enemies. Why? They're sucking trillions from Americans. So you hate him. Counterattack. Big mistake. Don't dismiss David Stockman. He's no Kim Jong-Un blow-hard. -- Washington Post Stockman devotes some of the book to the past five years, joining multiple previous authors who have presented their nominations for the villains and heroes of the 2008 economic collapse. As a book critic and investigative reporter, I have absorbed a dozen of those previous books. Stockman's is my favorite because of his original research, the context he presents (starting with the economic depression of the 1930s), his former insider status, and his apparent political non-partisanship during the endeavor. -- Steve Weinberg, USA Today I'd read this book 10 times before I read another possible presidential candidate's memoir of how his Real American Story schooled him in the Audacity of Hope. ...a coherent vision of a World Without the Fed. -- David Weigel, Slate In The Great Deformation, David Stockman - former US congressman and budget director under Ronald Reagan - tells the story of the recent crisis, and takes direct aim at the conventional wisdom that credits government policy and Ben Bernanke with rescuing Americans from another Great Depression. In this he has made a seminal contribution. But he does much more than this. He offers a sweeping, revisionist account of US economic history from the New Deal to the present. He refutes widely held myths about the Reagan years and the demise of the Soviet Union. He covers the growth and expansion of the warfare state. He shows precisely how the Fed enriches the powerful and shelters them from free markets. He demonstrates the flimsiness of the present so-called recovery. Above all, he shows that attempts to blame our economic problems on capitalism are preposterous, and reveal a complete lack of understanding of how the economy has been deformed over the past several decades...Thanks to The Great Deformation, not a shred of the regime's propaganda is left standing. This is truly the book we have been waiting for, and we owe David Stockman a great debt. -- Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch This thought-provoking book will contribute to important debates on these issues. -- Booklist Stockman performs a real service when he debunks the myths that have been associated with Reagan's conservatism and promotes Eisenhower's fiscal and military conservatism.... Stockman forcefully conveys enormous amounts of knowledge. -- Kirkus Reviews Stockman produces a persuasive and deeply relevant indictment of a system dangerously akilter.... What Stockman has written is a book that makes clear we are that future generation of the past, inheritors of all the wishful thinking, simple illogic and flawed compromises that produced the near-term benefits our parents and grandparents worried about but ultimately wanted. And now it's payback time. -- LewRockwell.com This is a history book. It's a detailed account of the key events since the Depression that have shaped modern finance. I love history, and I'm familiar with those events. Stockman's spin on financial history makes for a very good read. There's something for everyone. -- Bruce Krasting For anyone whose economics are Austrian, and who agrees with Stockman that crony capitalism and corruption have led both fiscal and monetary policies into a cycle of ever-increasing stimulus and ziggurats of debt, The Great Deformation is gloomily persuasive - and bodes ill for the future. -- Reuters Breakingviews Agree with Stockman or not, one can't deny that he's a colorful writer! -- Townhall.com Stockman, veteran of the Reagan White House and Wall Street, offers his self-described polemic, a wide-ranging indictment of the American government-economic complex; free markets and democracy have been under long-term attack, and the author explains why we have myriad problems, perhaps intractable. He indicates the book contains much original interpretation of financial and public policy events and trends of the last century, even a revisionist framework. Stockman concludes his lengthy controversial argument with: the cure . . . is to return to sound money and fiscal rectitude and to correct the great error initiated during the New Deal . . . . In pursuing humanitarian purposes the state cannot and need not attempt to manage the business cycle or goose the free market with stimulants for more growth and jobs; nor can it afford the universal entitlements of social insurance. Its job is to be a trustee for citizens left behind, maintaining a sturdy, fair and efficient safety net. This thought-provoking book will contribute to important debates on these issues. --Mary Whaley, Booklist Praise for The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed by David Stockman New York Times Bestseller This memoir is a bitter review of Stockman's years in the Reagan Administration. It is a book with few heroes and many fools. The author claims naivete as his excuse. Although the narrative is somewhat confusing, overall, its backstage view of policymaking leaves one discouraged, even frightened by the superficiality. The book is a necessary library purchase for two reasons: the notoriety of the book and its author, and the insider's view of key policies still in place and key personalities still in power. -- Richard C. Schiming, Library Journal

Author Information

David A. Stockmanis the ultimate Washington insider turned iconoclast. He began his career in Washington as a young man and quickly rose through the ranks of the Republican Party to become the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan. After leaving the White House, Stockman had a 20-year career on Wall Street. Stockman's career in Washington began in 1970, when he served as a special assistant to U.S. Representative, John Anderson of Illinois. From 1972 to 1975, he was executive director of the U.S. House of Representatives Republican Conference. Stockman was elected as a Michigan Congressman in 1976 and held the position until his resignation in January 1981. He then became Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan, serving from 1981 until August 1985. Stockman was the youngest cabinet member in the 20th century. Although only in his early 30s, Stockman became well known to the public during this time concerning the role of the federal government in American society. After leaving government, Stockman joined Wall Street investment bank Salomon Bros. He later became one of the original partners at New York-based private equity firm, The Blackstone Group. Stockman left Blackstone in 1999 to start his own private equity fund based in Greenwich, Connecticut. Stockman is the author of numerousNew York Timesbestselling books andalso provides private research and analysis to professional investors and firms globally through ""David Stockman's Contra Corner,"" his subscriber advisory relating to investing, global economics, and public policy. Stockman was born in Ft. Hood, Texas. He received his B.A. from Michigan State University and pursued graduate studies at Harvard Divinity School. He lives with his wife Jennifer Blei Stockman, and they have two daughters, Rachel and Victoria. Helives & works in the Miami, Florida metro area. www.davidstockmanscontracorner.com

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