談及日圓無法成為國際一線貨幣的歷史︰
And allowing a foreign demand for yen to develop would have put upward pressure on the exchange rate, negating undervaluation as a tool of economic development. In order to internationalize its currency, Japan then, like China now, would have had to abandon its tried-and-true growth model.
Eventually in the 1980s it did… The Big Bang allowed large Japanese company to access the corporate bond market. Seeing that they were losing their corporate clients, the banks scrambled for other customers, whom they found in real estate developers. The Big Bang spawned a massive real estate boom and bust whose consequences took years to clean up… As a results, Tokyo never rose above second-tier financial-center status (p. 45).
作者指現在上海意圖成為國際金融中心與人民幣打算國際化時，借鏡日本經驗，放寬金融市場時應該謹慎行事。
提到歐元︰
This history also reminds us that the euro is fundamentally a political project. This is its weakness, since it explains how it was that the euro was created before all the economic prerequisites needed for its smooth operation were in place. But it is also its strength, since it explains why the member states now feel compelled to complete them – and why the euro is likely to emerge from its crisis stronger than before (p. 70).
講述美國次按危機時，作者不忘諷刺Larry Summers、Robert Rubin與Alan Greenspan事前對衍生工具大加讚揚，並拒絕加強監管衍生工具市場的提議。提到各種支撐次按證券的數學模型時，作者指︰
The fact that the models were based on simplifying assumptions, necessarily in order to render them tractable, meant that in the hands of careful practitioners they were never used as more than a starting point for thinking about risks. Careful practitioners similarly understood that the model was fitted to a relatively short series of observations of the prices of certain assets. Information on the prices of complex mortgage-related securities spanned only the period when home prices had gone up, for example, and consequently contained little information about what might happen if prices came down. The problem was that there were few incentives to be a careful practitioner (p. 107).
為何次按危機後美元仍然維持其優勢？作者認為原因在於美元仍是世上最大經濟體，而且其國債市場仍是最流動，方便其他國家中央銀行買賣，加上國際市場習慣以美元計價，假如沒有影響重大的原因，為求方便交易商不會貿然轉用其他貨幣。
其他國際貨幣競爭對手也有其問題，英鎊與瑞士法郎問題是國家經濟規模太小，無法提供足夠債務工具滿足國際需求；日本則不鼓勵日元在國際流通，而且其經濟增長率低，人口老化，利息水平接近零，令持有日圓欠缺吸引力；歐元是美元現時唯一對手，但其債券市場不夠流動，也沒有單一政府可以快速應對金融危機，最近的歐元危機也明確顯示歐元缺乏恆常應變機制；中國則由於擁有大量美元儲備，美元地位下降會會對中國自身造失損失。
至於其他非國家貨幣選擇，像國際貨幣基金的特別提款權(SDR)，則流動性不足並缺乏廣泛用途，難以在市場活躍交易，至多會是中央銀行儲備的額外選擇；黃金儲備在應付金融危機時同樣難以快速轉為現金救急；其他像森林、石油儲備、煉油廠等同樣如此，其流動性不足以救急，只有儲備過多如中國等國家才會以此為儲備選項。
作者因此認為未來走向是國際貨幣走向多元︰
So where does this leave us? It leaves us with the prospect of multiple international currencies. A world of multiple international currencies is coming because the world economy is growing more multipolar, eroding the traditional basis for the dollar's monopoly…
it was clear that the tension between a multipolar economic world and a dollar-dominated international monetary system would have to be resolved… there was little question about the form this resolution would take (p. 150).
最後一章討論未來可能出現的美元崩盤，作者認為中美因政治角力而令中國大量沽售美元的可能不大，因為中國自己擁有大量美元儲備，而且其10% GNP來自向美國出口，美元貶值會對中國造成甚大損失。同樣，其他國家也不願看到美元貶值令自己的出口失去競爭力。故此作者認為較有可能的美元崩盤會起因於美國自己，也就是其財政赤字無法收拾，尤其是美國近年稅收減少但政府開支增加，不久前受到金融危機打擊，人口也日漸老化，最終可能舉債過多，令外國投資者對美元失去信心。
假如美國最終需要以外幣舉債，聯邦儲備局就不能像以往一樣只顧國內通脹與就業，需要顧及美元匯價穩定，影響經濟的能力會大為下降。或說美元下跌會令製造業回巢，藍領工人待遇會得到改善，紓援國內不平等情況，作者認為這種說法並不正確︰
The United States has abundant capital and skilled labor by the standard of emerging markets. Capital and skilled workers are the inputs used most intensively by its export industries and sectors… An exchange rate 30 percent lower is not going to be of much help to an unskilled or semiskilled worker in the United States competing head to head with Chinese labor, especially when labor productivity in China is growing by 6 percent per annum.
Ramping up U.S. exports is desirable on any number of grounds. But it will benefit mainly capital and skilled labor… If Americans are concerned, as they should be, with income inequality, they will need to address it through other means, be they changes in the tax code and caps on bankers' bonuses or more investment in education and training (p. 175).
歸根究底，國家的影響力主要是受其經濟表現，而不是貨幣幣值或外國投資影響︰
The point is that it is not the exchange rate or the net foreign investment position as much as the fundamental underlying health of the economy that matters for geopolitical leverage. If one wants a single unified explanation for the behavior of the exchange rate and net foreign investment position, it would again by the fundamental underlying health of the economy. Whether the dollar rises or falls by 30 percent will matter much less for U.S. strategic influence than whether U.S. economic growth averages 2 or 4 percent per annum over the next decade (p. 177).
