Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles - The Ludwig von Mises ...

PREFACE TOTHE SECONDSPANISH EDITIONFollowing the success of the first edition of Dinero,Crédito Bancario y Ciclos Económicos, which sold outrapidly, I am pleased to present the second edition toSpanish-speaking readers. To avoid confusion and facilitatethe work of scholars and researchers, the contents, structure,and page numbering of the first edition have beenmaintained in the second, though the book has been thoroughlyexamined and all misprints detected have beeneliminated.In the wake of a decade marked by great credit expansionand the development of a large financial bubble, thecourse of economic events in the world from 1999 through2001 was characterized by the collapse of stock-market valuesand the emergence of a recession which now simultaneouslygrips the United States, Europe, and Japan. These circumstanceshave left the analysis presented in this bookeven more clearly and fully illustrated than when it was firstpublished, at the end of 1998. While governments and centralbanks have reacted to the terrorist attack on New York’sWorld Trade Center by manipulating interest rates, reducingthem to historically low levels (1 percent in the UnitedStates, 0.15 percent in Japan and 2 percent in Europe), themassive expansion of fiduciary media injected into the systemwill not only prolong and hinder the necessary streamliningof the real productive structure, but may also lead toxli