ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the story of the breakdown of the world's economic system. It also discusses that in late 1974; most major stock markets had already fallen by more than they did in the original Great Crash of 1929. This collapse of the stock markets, dramatic though it looked, affected the lives of ordinary people much less than the acceleration of inflation. In the first half of 1974, in the seven biggest industrial countries, consumer prices were on average 15 percent higher than in the second half of 1973, which in turn had seen inflation already well into double figures. The dangers ahead were summed up by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in its July 1974 Economic Outlook. The book explains about international currency crises, about balance of payments deficits, about the gyrations of economic policy.
