Moneymakers
This book is about the most precious piece of paper we know, about banknotes. Paper money was invented by the Chinese - one thousand years later, the American colonists were the first ones in the Western world to systematically use it, even financing their revolution by issuing huge numbers of dollar bills. Modern life would be unthinkable without paper money. Yet, the general public is kept very much in the dark about how banknotes are made or who makes them. This secrecy is regularly explained as legitimate special security for a very special product. But it also has to do with the unusual, highly6 politicized structure of the market. The armaments industry immediately comes to mind. This obsession with secrecy, however, seems out of place in the era of the internet. After all, banknote printing involves the massive use - and often waste- of taxpayers' money.This is the first book offering an in-depth view of the banknote industry and its modus operandi. The only known former attempt to reveal this story was by an American author. The edition of that book was bought up - straight from the printing presses - by two prominent representatives of the industry because the public was not supposed to get an inside view of the business.Moneymakers has been researched over a five-year period in Europe, the USA and Latin America. The book is based exclusively on personal interviews and confidential material normally not accessible to outsiders. There were attempts to stop this research project. Many witnesses interviewed spoke under condition of strict confidentiality for fear of reprisals by their employers. As a rule therefore, the author refrained from verbatim quotes and, as far as possible, tried to confirm every piece of information by two independent sources.