Our money today is the product of an abrupt change that happened less than four decades ago. It was then that the world's currencies all became fiat: backed only by laws and policies, and subject to change at any time.

My mother shocked when her favorite restaurant raised the price of coffee from 5¢ to 10¢ a cup in the late 1960s. Coffee had cost a nickel for decades, but suddenly everything was becoming more expensive. Yet she never questioned her money. She didn't know it was losing value.

Fiat money inevitably loses value over time. In the centuries since paper money was invented, governments have often exercised fiat to arbitrarily set the value of money, with the same disastrous consequences. Empires collapsed and countless individuals were ruined when that paper money failed to buy what they needed.

This book tells their stories. It gives the facts about how, why, and when fiat money changes. The responsibility to understand those changes rests with you.

The value of money should not change--for it is our security and we must be able to count on it to bring what we want in the future.

--Aristotle