The Alchemy of Money: Banking, Credit, and the Future of Finance - Perfect for Investors, Economists & Financial Professionals" (使用场景: Ideal for understanding modern banking systems, financial crises, and monetary policy discussions)

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. As a former student and tutor of economics, I found this book gracious and provocative in its approach to helping me understand economics on a level that of a master of the "dismal science," such as Lord King. It is both a clear recitation and explanation of important economic events prior to the 2007-2009 crisis as well a guide to important reforms that might help our world banking system (and the central banks that make it up) right our ship by "ending alchemy."With that said, it should be noted that the book is heavily weighted in discussing some of the fundamentals of the economics of money/banking. After the first chapter that lays out the main argument of the book, the next six chapters are terrific explanations of how everything has worked in the past, works now and the faults lying in all of it. The final two chapters are really where King develops further his recommendations for how to fix the issues in our current system, especially in terms of the "disequilibrium" he emphasizes throughout the book (by the way, this is a really important concept in all the later arguments so be sure to watch for it and understand it!)I enjoyed the succinct discussion of the future for ideas such as returning to a gold standard or the move to digital currencies like Bitcoin. Personally I was a huge fan of gold and an opponent of the "alchemy" of fiat money creation until I was schooled by King to understanding the economic difficulties with gold's use as a backing to our money in today's global marketplace. It was the plethora of notes and the extensive bibliography that helped me see the advantage of his well-researched argument versus the uninformed opinions I had brought to my reading of this text.Please ignore some of the really negative reviews for this book. Realize that getting a book that's researched and plainly written by a major figure in economics is truly exceptional compared to the popular junk that just promotes fear-mongering by deriding the concepts of central banking and worrying everyone about the future economic Armageddon that is apparently inevitable. Notice who the reviews on the back cover are written by - quality, heavy-hitters in the world of economics; this is a great book to learn a lot.