In 1971, Chief executive Nixon imposed nationwide price controls and took the United States off the precious metal standard, an intense measure designed to end a continuing currency war that had destroyed faith in the U.S. buck. Today we are engaged in a new currency war, which time the consequences will be far worse than the ones that confronted Nixon.

Money wars are probably one of the most destructive and feared outcomes in international economics. At greatest, they provide the sorry spectacle of countries’ stealing about Money Wars: The Making of another Global Crises development from their trading companions. At worst, they degenerate into sequential rounds of inflation, downturn, retaliation, and occasionally actual violence. Remaining unchecked, another currency war could lead to a crisis even worse than the stress of 2008.

Money wars have happened before-twice in the last century alone-and they always end badly. Time and again, paper currencies have collapsed, assets have been freezing, gold has been confiscated, and capital settings have been imposed. And the next crash is usually overdue. Latest headlines about the debasement of the dollar, bailouts in Greece and Ireland, and Chinese currency manipulation are indicators from the growing conflict.

As Wayne Rickards argues in Money Wars, that is more than just a concern for economists and traders. The United States is facing critical dangers to its national protection, from clandestine yellow metal purchases by China to the hidden agendas of sovereign wealth funds. Higher than any one threat is the very real threat of the collapse of the money itself.

Baffling to many observers may be the rank failure of economists to foresee or prevent the economic catastrophes of modern times. Not only possess their theories didn’t prevent calamity, they are making the money wars even worse. The U. S. Federal Reserve has engaged in the greatest gamble in the annals of fund, a sustained work to stimulate the overall economy by printing money on the trillion-dollar scale. Its solutions present concealed new problems while resolving non-e of the current dilemmas.

While the outcome of the new currency war is not yet certain, some version from the worst-case scenario is almost inevitable if U.S. and world economic leaders fail to study from the errors of their predecessors.