Bloomberg News today begins publishing a four-part excerpt from a new book about the U.S. government's devaluation of the dollar, repudiation of debt, and confiscation of monetary gold in 1933.
The book is titled "American Default -- The Untold Story of FDR, the Supreme Court, and the Battle over Gold," and it's written by Sebastian Edwards, Henry Ford II professor of international economics at the University of California at Los Angeles.
"American Default" is published by Princeton University Press, whose publicity for the book --
https://press.princeton.edu/titles/11230.html
-- says:
"Sebastian Edwards provides a compelling account of the economic and legal drama that embroiled a nation already reeling from global financial collapse. It began on April 5, 1933, when FDR ordered Americans to sell all their gold holdings to the government.
"This was followed by the abandonment of the gold standard, the unilateral and retroactive rewriting of contracts, and the devaluation of the dollar. Anyone who held public and private debt suddenly saw its value reduced by nearly half, and debtors -- including the U.S. government -- suddenly owed their creditors far less.
"Revaluing the dollar imposed a hefty loss on investors and savers, many of them middle-class American families.
"The banks fought back, and a bitter battle for gold ensued. In early 1935 the case went to the Supreme Court. Edwards describes FDR's rancorous clashes with conservative Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, a confrontation that threatened to finish the New Deal for good -- and that led to FDR's attempt to pack the court in 1937."
The more conspiratorily minded among gold's observers may wonder if the book's timing anticipates a similar default in the near future. In any case the book won't be formally published for another week.
Bloomberg's first excerpt is pretty interesting and it's posted here:
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-...tle-over-the...
Amazon is already offering the book for sale here:
https://www.amazon.com/American-Default-Un...e/dp/0691161...
