Description:Along with investment advice, Wiggin provides a brief history of government and consumer spending habits and how they have changed over the past 200 years. In clear language, he states the reasons for the dollar's decline, and provides explanations of the forces behind inflation, modern corporate accounting and adjustment schemes, the parallels between corporate failures and government policies, the implications of the national debt and deficit spending, and the distinctions between productive and consumptive debt. He also discusses how foreign countries, particularly China, are ultimately in control of the U.S.'s economic fate due to the staggering amount of credit they have extended. Wiggin is highly critical of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's policies, particularly the massive shift from production to credit that he has espoused, and calls into question his efforts to manage the dollar's value. Of course, Greenspan was not working alone — every president since Ronald Reagan has embraced his views. Written for lay readers, The Demise of the Dollar offers a practical analysis of what the ''twilight of the Great Dollar Standard Era'' may bring. — Shawn Carkonen