Investing in the Age of Sovereign Defaults: How to Preserve your Wealth in the Coming Crisis -- Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Preface -- Why Another Book on the Financial Crisis? -- Overview of Contents -- Chapter 1: Democracies' Fatal Attraction of Populism -- Default, an Expanded Definition -- Debt Default in History-A Recurring Theme -- Nobody Likes a Lender -- Populism, Democracy, and the Road to Default -- The Demographics Are Awful -- The Special Roles of the United States -- Universal Suffrage-The Holy Grail or the Villain? -- Universal Suffrage-The American Story -- Rational Economic Man? -- Irrational Voters? -- Is a Meritocracy Good for Everyone? -- Do We Want a Meritocracy? -- Public-Sector Unions-We Vote for You, You Reward Us -- Debt and Macroeconomics -- Hyman Minsky: Another View of Debt and Macroeconomics -- Culture Counts -- One Note of Optimism -- Notes -- Chapter 2: The Sorry Fiscal State of the Advanced Countries -- Sovereign Debt/GDP -- Outlook for the United States -- Dismal Demographics -- Race and Ethnicity-An American Complication -- Unfunded Entitlements and Dismal Accounting -- And Then There Are the American States -- The Ownership of US Government Securities -- If Something Cannot Go on Forever, Then It Will Stop -- Europe-The Default Process Has Already Begun -- The Euro-What Should Have Been -- Concerned about the Wrong Thing -- I Told You So -- What Europe Should Have Done Differently -- The Third German Attempt to Take Over Europe Will Fail, as Did the Last Two -- The United Kingdom-Not a Euro Country -- Japan-The Enigma -- Notes -- Chapter 3: A Diversion to India and China -- India-The Democratic Surprise -- China-Not a Democracy, Populism Less of a Problem -- But the Dynasty Will Survive -- Note -- Chapter 4: The International Monetary System-In Desperate Need of Repair.

Let's Start with History and Economics -- The Gold Standard in Theory-The Price-Specie Flow Mechanism -- The Sad Evolution of the International Monetary System -- Bimetallic/Silver Standards Pre-1879 -- The Classical Gold Standard (1879-1914) -- The WWI Fiat Money Period -- Gold Exchange Standard (1921-1936) -- The Bretton Woods System (1945-1971) -- The Current Dollar-Centric Fiat Money System (1973-Present) -- The New World of Quantitative Easing (2001-?) -- The International Monetary System Must Change-But to What? -- Keep the Current System But Set Up Rules -- A New Gold Standard? -- Alternative Private Moneys -- Keynes's Bancor -- Notes -- Chapter 5: The Road to Worthless Paper Money -- China-The Birthplace of (Worthless) Paper Money -- A Persian Diversion -- The American Story-"Honest Abe" Prints Some Money -- German Hyperinflation-Is This the Prototype? -- Modern Inflation -- Are We Really in Deflation? -- Measuring Inflation-Are the Numbers Really Higher? -- Notes -- Chapter 6: An Overall Assessment of the Current Investing Scene -- The Bad News -- The Good News and Some Long-Term Trends (Which Are Mostly Good News) -- The Unknowns -- Supply-Side Reforms Must be Enacted -- Taxation-Americans versus Everybody Else -- Note -- Chapter 7: Investment Survival in the Age of Defaults -- Asset Classes for Investment Survival -- Cash -- Fixed-Income Securities -- European Equities -- What about American TIPS? -- Gold-Don't Get Carried Away -- Commodities/Resources-Not a Simple Story -- Selected Big-Cap Nonfinancial, Global Companies -- Large Global Banks-Avoid -- Equities from Selected Emerging Markets -- A Review of the BRICs -- A Note on South Africa -- The Russian Federation -- Note -- Appendix A: A Quantitative Approach to Sovereign Risk Assessment -- Measuring Sovereign Risk -- How Do Banks Assess and Manage Sovereign Risk?.

Are Banks Good at Sovereign Risk Assessment? -- Common Practices of Credit Rating Agencies -- Can the Models of CRAs Be Replicated? -- Quantitative Models on Sovereign Risk -- Banking System Stability and Sovereign Risk -- Market Indicators on Sovereign Risk -- Volatility Indexes -- Historical Volatilities -- Credit Default Swap (CDS) -- Integration between Shadow Models and Market Indicators -- Managing Sovereign Risk -- Notes -- References -- About the Author -- About the Contributor -- Index.