Silver Drain: The American Law That Bankrupted China

In 1934, driven by domestic lobbying from Western mining states, the United States government made a seemingly isolated economic decision. It began aggressively buying massive quantities of silver to artificially inflate prices during the Great Depression. This domestic policy triggered a catastrophic international shockwave. At the time, China was the only major global economy operating on a strict silver standard. As the US drove global prices up, Chinese silver became vastly more valuable abroad, resulting in staggering volumes of the metal being smuggled out of the country. This book traces the unintended macroeconomic devastation of the Silver Purchase Act. The sudden disappearance of currency triggered crippling deflation, widespread bank failures, and the total collapse of the Chinese export market. Master the butterfly effect of global macroeconomics. Reveal how a mundane American legislative act designed to appease a few miners inadvertently destabilized the Nationalist Chinese government, paving the way for revolution.