In its hubris, the financial sector has hijacked the American economy and put our very global future at risk. “Bad money” refers not just to the depreciated dollar but to the dangerous attitudes and flawed products of wayward megafinance. Also “bad” are the risk miscalculations and strategic abuses of new multitrillion-dollar products and vehicles like CDOs and SIVs. Phillips lashes out at the “bad money” practices and reckless behavior of buccaneering institutions like hedge funds and tabulates the dangers of hot-wiring U.S. home ownership to global credit instability. He exposes the absurd but insistent faith in the efficiency of casino-like markets and Washington’s reliance on misleading statistics about inflation and consumer prices. Foreign policy has taken its toll as well. The dollar is losing value in the world because of America’s financial irresponsibility and indebtedness, and the ruinous war in Iraq has severely eroded our influence over global oil producers and foreign central banks.