Tug of War: Today's Global Currency Crisis

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In recent years, the value of the U.S. dollar has fluctuated wildly. Japanese investors have lost billions in U.S. markets, causing an almost unprecedented run on the dollar. The leaders of the world currency markets were forced to band together to push up the value of the U.S. dollar. Tug of War: Today's Global Currency Crisis is the riveting story of this flow of money around the globe and what it means for us today. In 1991, the Mexican government tied the value of the peso to the dollar. As the peso slid and almost vanished, the fortunes of the dollar waned. Investors around the world, especially the Japanese, lost confidence in the dollar, creating a soaring yen and dragging down the value of the dollar even more. Subsequent events in the world currency markets pulled the dollar in even more directions: rogue traders lost billions on bad deals; the European Union began determining the value of its own currency; Japanese banks admitted enormous, previously concealed, losses. The tug of war continued. Paul Erdman, as well-known for his ability to predict financial markets as for his ability to write a suspenseful story, clearly explains the tangled basis and continuing strength of the currency crisis, gives his predictions about the future, and offers advice to market masters on the direction they should pursue.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

In financial pundit Erdman's analysis, the global currency instability of 1995 began with the barely noticed devaluation of the Mexican peso, ricocheted throughout Latin America and mushroomed when Japanese investors suffered heavy losses in U.S. stocks, bonds, loans and real estate. This concise, lucid primer, interwoven with charts, graphs and diagrams, will transform the financially illiterate person into an armchair expert on such topics as currency markets, derivatives and international trade. Challenging the dire predictions of doomsayers such as Paul Kennedy, Lester Thurow and Michael Crichton, who envisaged the eclipse of the U.S. as a superpower, Erdman foresees steady U.S. economic growth through the 1990s, with low unemployment. But he also sets forth a worst-case scenario of global monetary collapse triggered by a free fall of the dollar, by escalating Japanese-U.S. confrontation or by external systemic shocks. Finally, he predicts that the European Monetary Union, an eight-nation currency bloc scheduled to begin in 1999, will be a formidable new player in the global arena, with Germany as its guiding force. (Sept.)

Library Journal

The international currency market today directly affects all of us. Financial columnist, magazine editor, radio and TV commentator, and author (The Swiss Account, Tor, 1993), Erdman gives us this succinct but fascinating story of the flow of U.S. dollars and Japanese yen around the globe. He addresses the dollar-yen history and current crisis and offers predictions and lending advice to speculators and business experts. While analyzing the drastic decline of the Mexican peso, the gradual strengthening of the German Deutsche mark, and other currency changes, he centers on the U.S.-Japan predicament. The volume's three parts provide figures and tables that chart the recent trends over time and across national borders. Sure to stir some controversy on both sides of the Pacific, this provocative book should be studied by business and government leaders, scholars, and others interested in the future role of international currency exchange.Joseph W. Leonard, Miami Univ., Oxford, Ohio

Kirkus Reviews

Though best known in recent years as the author of fiscal entertainments (Zero Coupon, 1993, etc.), the Canadian-born Erdman is a bona fide economist and former Swiss banker. If not invariably prophetic, his periodic observations on the Global Village's monetary systems are always worth attention for their lucid explications of a complex subject.

The semi-sensational subtitle accurately reflects Erdman's focus on the long-range implications of the recent run on the US dollar, precipitated largely by the collapse of the Mexican peso and accompanied by a sharp rise in the value of the Japanese yen. Having outlined the major events of what he dubs the currency crisis of 1995, the author sorts through the conflicting claims as to who or what was to blame, subsequently ticking off winners (US exporters) and losers (mainly Japanese investors who had acquired American assets at inflated prices). Moving on to an after-the-fall audit of money markets, Erdman assesses the roles played by so- called speculators (commercial banks as well as hedge funds) and trade blocs (the EU, NAFTA, et al.). Offered as well are worst-case scenarios for an appreciably more competitive but debt-burdened US and a recession-ridden, deflation-afflicted Japan. That, however, is unlikely to happen, according to Erdman. He reminds us that Japan's much-vaunted economy is but one-half to three-fifths the size of America's in terms of purchase power parity, and notes as well that America retains comparative advantages in entrepreneurship, availability of venture capital, and minimal regulatory constraints. Erdman suggests that America (in partnership with a more open, less mercantile Japan) will provide the responsible leadership that ensures a prosperous tomorrow for the wider world.

An accessible interpretive briefing on currency exchange rates and why they matter to a host of constituencies ranging from policy makers to consumers.