Stephen J. Spence's Book Excellence Awards Winner in the Finances category is the book that you don't know you need until you read it. This straightforward guide helps you understand the global monetary system and why the shine is off the U.S. dollar's position as the Gold Standard of world currencies and, more importantly, why that matters for you. Spence, a military veteran and corporate employee-turned-entrepreneur, lays out a concise history of the U.S. monetary system. He's candid about his own life lessons and how he finally found his way out of the debt trap. Next, he shares how he came to discover the hard realities revealed in this informative and shocking read. The author explains in layperson's terms how the institutions (like the Federal Reserve) that control money work and how all of this affects you. He also offers timely insight into what's going on right now from bank failures to crypto currency to inflation and hyper-inflation and offers his opinions on steps the everyday person can take to protect their financial future. Many of the things that he predicted in the original edition have already happened or are coming to fruition now. If you read this revised and updated book, you will put yourself in the Top 1% of the public with some understanding about what is happening with our monetary system in the United States.