164 THE BiG DROP
Over the course of my career, I made a move to investment
banking and later made a move to hedge funds. In those areas
and in those firms I learned a lot about government securi-
ties. I worked for one of the so-called primary dealers.
The Federal Reserve conducts monetary policy by increas-
ing or reducing the money supply. They do that by buying
and selling bonds. If they buy bonds from dealers, they for it
with printed money. If they want to reduce the money supply,
they sell bonds and remove the money from the system. They
need someone to trade those bonds with and the Fed has an
approved list. They won’t trade with just anybody.
There are about twenty banks in the world that they’re
willing to trade with. The firm I worked for at the time was
one of the banks, a so-called primary dealer.
After that, I joined a hedge fund and learned about de-
rivatives. My career has evolved along the industry from com-
mercial banking to investment banking to hedge funds and
derivatives, but all the while I kept my hand in international
economics.
More recently, I was involved on the national security side,
particularly in the aftermath of 9/11, which I talk about in my
books.
In The Death of Money, I talk about a study of insider trad-
ing and events of the 9/11 attacks and in Currency Wars, I talk
about a war game — the first financial war game ever done.
I’ve been able to combine both my background in interna-
tional economics and law on the one hand with geopolitical
expertise on the other to the benefit of Strategic Intelligence
readers like you.■ i’ve Lost Everything Twice
Other personal experiences — two in particular — have helped
form the goal of Strategic Intelligence.