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The Fiat Standard cover art

The Fiat Standard

By: Saifedean Ammous
Narrated by: Saifedean Ammous,Guy Swann
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Summary

In The Fiat Standard, world-renowned economist Saifedean Ammous applies his unique analytical lens to the fiat monetary system, explaining it as a feat of engineering and technology just as he did for bitcoin in his global best seller The Bitcoin Standard.

This time, Ammous delves into the world's earlier shift from the gold standard to today's system of government-backed fiat money—outlining the fiat standard's purposes and failures; deriving the wider economic, political, and social implications of its use; and examining how bitcoin will affect it over time.

With penetrating insight, Ammous analyzes global political currencies by analogy to bitcoin: how they're "mined" whenever government-guaranteed entities create loans, their lack of inherent restraints on inflation, and the rampant government intervention that has resulted in heavy, devastating, and persistent distortions to global markets for food, fuel, science, and education.

Through these comparisons, Ammous demonstrates that bitcoin could be our next step forward—providing high salability across space, just like the fiat system, but without the unchecked fiat-denominated debt. Rather than a messy hyperinflationary collapse, the rise of bitcoin could look like a debt jubilee and an orderly upgrade to the world's monetary operating system, revolutionizing global capital and energy markets.

©2021 Saifedean Ammous (P)2022 Saifedean Ammous

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Biased, contradictory and unsubstantiated claims

Saifedeen clearly has an axe to grind with the government. he makes wild accusations about education, healthcare, nutrition, science, war and climate change; all of which are unexplored and unsubstantiated. Essentially, everything bad about the world is because of greedy governments trying to control you by getting you into debt. After reading The Bitcoin Standard, I wasn't fond of Saifedeen due to him calling Keynes a pedofile, but this book makes him sound like a spokesman for QAnon.

There are some snippets of information about how our financial systems work, but he uses blatantly biased language at all times when talking about Fiat. He purposely refers to fossile fuels as."hydrocarbons" as if to make them sound more scientific and more advanced than current, greener technology. He talks about people getting fatter because of government campaigns to reduce the amount of red meat we eat, but then later says that the fattest people eat more red meat.

100 % biased hyperbole. don't waste your credits

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6 people found this helpful

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Outstanding

this man must be amassing some very powerful enemies by now, as his work is shining a light on the complete corruption of the fiat world we live in...

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2 people found this helpful

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talks more about his other book than anything else

so disappointed in this book, at the beginning the author makes a statement that, this carries on from the last three chapters of the bitcoin version of this book. unfortunately he doesn't stop talking about it ! makes to many comparisons to crypto, mixing terms and assuming everyone has read his bitcoin book. terrible

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Biased by ego

The author touches upon interesting areas of the history and economics, but his statements and opinions are to much of personal opinions farther than well-put arguments. It feels like a personal rant that drains the book of the leverage it could have held in the discussion of money and economics. It bases a lot upon the author’s former book The Bitcoin Standard, one that to my understanding is highly flawed when it comes to the historical background it applies to money and economics in earlier centuries. An important review of that book is written by Frances Coppola and should be attached to the book cover. I fear that this book include many of the same fallacies as The Bitcoin Standard to which it references to regularly and bases many of its arguments an conclusions upon.

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A 'Vaccine' for the fiat afflicted!

Get cured now and stop thinking in a fiat way. This book guides you through and explains some of the worst fiat atrosoties past, present and potential future ones. Do not underestimate the huge damage that has occurred by allowing government to steal you lifeforce in the form of time needed to earn their funny money coupons. Listen or read this deeply researched book when you can still act upon the information inside it. #Bitcoinfuture

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Essential reading.

This is essential reading for anyone interested in money, Bitcoin and protecting their wealth. Great book!

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  • Ed
  • 08-03-24

surprised by the knock on effects of fiat that are only obviously when pointed out

great book and well recommended to anybody heading down the Bitcoin rabbit hole. definitely read the bitcoin standard first.

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Fiat debt explanation was very good

I thought some of the food attack sections were rather too political, but overall it was excellent

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Author should focus on economics

Interesting read on macro economics and history of fiat but author goes on long rants on energy, education and diet which seems to areas where he is not all that well versed.

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Interesting, but major flaws

I read this to try and understand the bitcoin as a store of value argument, and whilst I'm mostly convinced that bitcoin is here to stay and the theory around it holding value, I still feel that that is vulnerable to runs if people lose trust in it, and unlike gold it has no inherent value in its own right.

Also I feel that credit has a place - surely borrowing money to buy a machine to make high value widgets with ROI of 3 years, and that might otherwise take me 10 years to save up for if I have a job in a call centre, is a good thing?

I nearly gave up at the fiat food section - I'm no vegan, but I thought the "industrial sludge" assertions were completely ridiculous and destroyed the credibility of the author.

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