This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
When Money Dies
Submitted by Paul-Martin Foss via The Carl Menger Center,
“When Money Dies” is the title of a 1975 book by Adam Fergusson, in which he describes the downfall of the Reichsmark in Weimar Germany. A fascinating look at that period of history, one can glean quite a few useful pieces of advice on how to survive a currency crisis. But “when money dies” could also describe the current currency crisis in Greece, in which many Greeks seem to have taken those lessons from Fergusson’s account of the Weimar hyperinflation to heart.
Even though the Greek currency crisis isn’t a traditional hyperinflationary crisis, many Greeks are trying to get their hands on, and then spend, cash. One of the fears is that bank depositors will be forced to take losses on their accounts, the so-called “haircut”. This happened in Cyprus to some larger depositors, but the fear in Greece is that people with even just a few thousand euros in their accounts might be forced to take losses of 30-50% or more. Just imagine that you have $10,000 in your bank account and overnight the government says, “Sorry, your account balance is now $5,000.” Overnight, the purchasing power of your bank account has been cut in half.
So even though the government isn’t printing more money (yet!), the fear of a 50% devaluation of the purchasing power of bank accounts is causing Greeks to line up at ATMs to withdraw money. And because there is the additional fear that Greece may exit the euro, with unknown consequences, many people seek to convert their euros into tangible goods. Shoes, handbags, refrigerators, gold, jewelry, anything that can maintain value and be resold or bartered is fair game for those desperate not to lose all of their hard-earned savings.
The important thing to remember here is that capital and goods are wealth, not money. You can print as much money as you want, but if it can’t buy you anything then holding or using large amounts of it cannot make you wealthy.
During currency crises, those who have the most tangible goods are the wealthiest. When you read about the Weimar hyperinflation in Fergusson’s book, who were those who survived and thrived and who were those who suffered the most? Those who suffered were savers and retirees on fixed incomes. Once their money was completely devalued they were forced to start selling and bartering their limited possessions in order to get enough food to eat. Those who prospered were those who had gold, silver, foreign currency, and who had plenty of possessions. The more physical, tangible items you have to barter or sell, the stronger your position will be when money “dies.”
The Greek people understand that, hence the rush to get their hands on cash and to use that cash to stock up on physical goods now. It’s almost like a perverse game of musical chairs. No one wants to be left with huge cash balances or bank account balances at the end of the game, because he with the most money will be the one who stands to lose the most.
»
- 45443 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
A MUST read for any prepper or stacker or person who dosnt trust the .gov for their well being. First hand accounts from ground zero...
I listened to Danzig while reading....made it better.
RIPS
There is only one thing that ties together the Weimar Republic, Zimbabwe in the mid 2000’s, the Yuan dynasties, and nearly all of the other destructions of fiat currency throughout history…TOO MUCH DEBT!! It doesn’t matter what that debt is taken on for, war, social programs, or building palaces and monuments, the only relevant point is if the debt is high enough for the nation to turn to the printing press. Where we are now is no different.
How all of the financial advisors and commentators can say you should not own any precious metals in a portfolio considering the current debt loads around the world I don’t know. I just know I am paying attention to history and stacking!
The Author of this article at the Von Mises Institute is playing a little fast and lose with the truth.
As in lying.
"In Schacht’s 1967 book The Magic of Money, he “let the cat out of the bag, writing in German, with some truly remarkable admissions that shatter the ‘accepted wisdom’ the financial community has promulgated on the German hyperinflation.” What actually drove the wartime inflation into hyperinflation, said Schacht, was speculation by foreign investors, who would bet on the mark’s decreasing value by selling it short."
I think we all know who Schacht and the elite banking familes who placed him in power were... so lets let the story continue...
"At first, the speculation was fed by the Reichsbank (the German central bank), which had recently been privatized. But when the Reichsbank could no longer keep up with the voracious demand for marks, other private banks were allowed to create them out of nothing and lend them at interest as well.4"
Sounds like a bankster feeding frenzy to me...but I'm an idiot..
A Story with an Ironic Twist
"If Schacht is to be believed, not only did the government not cause the hyperinflation but it was the government that got the situation under control. The Reichsbank was put under strict regulation, and prompt corrective measures were taken to eliminate foreign speculation by eliminating easy access to loans of bank-created money. More interesting is a little-known sequel to this tale. What allowed Germany to get back on its feet in the 1930s was the very thing today’s commentators are blaming for bringing it down in the 1920s – money issued by seigniorage by the government.
Or for the not-so financially literate... they financed the government with non-interest paying notes.
http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/hyperinflation.php
Brought to you by the nice friendly folks at the Von Mises Institute financed by the Rockefeller NWO Globalists...
https://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/how-the-money-power-crea...
Sorry guys but a spade is a spade...
Please quote the exact phrases that were lies and why they were lies.
There needs to be an official ZH list.
PMs, alcohol, tobacco and firearms are heavily regulated or will be.
What else is relatively compact and holds value in dire times?
Hjalmar Schact "The Magic of Money" (1967) free for everyone to read in english and easily indexed here...
http://www.scribd.com/doc/93546488/Hjalmar-Schacht-The-Magic-of-Money#sc...
Enjoy.
P.S. I'm not against Austrian Economics per se... just the re-interpretation of history by NWO Rockefeller Globalists for their own benefit. Germany was intentionally looted and pillaged after the WWI by the same bankers that caused the war.
ALL WARS ARE BANKER WARS just like the one we may be heading into shortly.
Never forget that. And while you at at it you may want to check out who financed the Bolshevik revolution with $20M in gold.
Oh... and I almost forgot... also the Japanese in the war against Czarist Russia. Apparently someone thought they were in need of a Rothschild central bank.
Jacob Henry Schiff (born Jakob Heinrich Schiff; January 10, 1847 – September 25, 1920) was an American banker, businessman, and philanthropist. He helped finance, among many other things, the Japanese military efforts against Tsarist Russia in the Russo-Japanese War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Schiff
Imagine the Greek drug lord sitting on a few million euros.
:)
That's a very lumpy mattress... probably doesn't sleep to well either...
Isn't the inability to get your hands on enough cash to buy the stuff you need for all intents and purposes hyperinflation by another name?
It's one of the best books a person will ever read. very descriptive and very readable but also shows the results of out-of-control debasement of a currency.
Germany was devastated by WWI. Their economic powerhouse was ruined and their confidence in the future was shaky. Along comes GB and France who demand reparations from the War. Several attempts to negotiate payments were unsuccessful. With no economy, basic necessities came to rule. Hence, hyperinflation. Farmers refused to bring thier products to market because the price would he higher the following day. Without a strong government to force change, inflation accelerated. Ultimately, the entire financial system collapsed. Germans were destitute. They sought leadership and found a charismatic leader named Hitler. The real culprit was the France and GB governments...not the Banks.
"...PMs, alcohol, tobacco and firearms are heavily regulated or will be. What else is relatively compact and holds value in dire times?"
Don't forget ammunition for the firearms. Without ammo, your gun is just an expensive club.
As to holding value in dire times, it all depends on how dire the times become. If you are starving, you can't eat PMs. Food? Water filters or some other means of making water safe to drink? The means for starting fires? Tools and basic materials to build/repair shelters?
Forward (over the cliff)!
Yes so the poor will not have gold. Point taken.
;)
You've got a point.
I definitely jumped the gun but I have read a lot about what caused the hyperinflation in Germany and most of it is complete crap. So let's check Ferguson's book out...
When Money Dies: The Nightmare of Deficit Spending, Devaluation, and Hyperinflation in Weimar Germanyhttp://www.amazon.ca/When-Money-Dies-Devaluation-Hyperinflation/dp/15864...
Money may no longer be physically printed and distributed in the voluminous quantities of 1923. However, "quantitative easing," that modern euphemism for surreptitious deficit financing in an electronic era, can no less become an assault on monetary discipline. Whatever the reason for a country's deficit-necessity or profligacy, unwillingness to tax or blindness to expenditure-it is beguiling to suppose that if the day of reckoning is postponed economicrecovery will come in time to prevent higher unemployment or deeper recession. What if it does not? Germany in 1923 provides a vivid, compelling, sobering moral tale.
Yup... just as I thought. The book is junk. That might make any analysis derived form the book also junk.
Absolutely nothing against Carl Menger by the way... just the re-interpretation of historical fact.
http://www.goldonomic.com/When%20Money%20Dies.pdf
Full book for a skimming.
RIPS
How about:
...
One of these things is NOT like the others...
And it outperformed all the others.
...
If he didn't know it, he would not have included it in the list, despite the fact that it cuts against the rest of his arguments.
Crap almighty... our bullshit detectors are on high alert today... didn't even see the foreign currency (AKA "the Phoenix") get slid in there.
Anyway Keynes said gold was a "barbarous relic" so I guess it must have been held by BARBARIANS. (bankers)
Il est dangereux d’avoir raison dans des choses où des hommes accrédités ont tort. (Voltaire)
Thanks for the "Heads up"... I'll try to be a wrong a little more often. After all it was so easy several years ago before I came here...
I've heard plenty of stories from Europeans who carped that their PM holdings were essentially worthless in the aftermath of WWII, because they didn't get the value they thought they would in the resulting barter. Barabarous relic indeed.
That's another reason they recommend gold coins instead of bars, for example. The coins have an exact weight & quality and therefore exact value. Another advantage they are easily transportable and non-perishable.
I know two Cambodians who bought their way out of that cruel dictatorship using gold coins to bribe border guards, etc through Vietnam and then up into China and then onto Canada when Pol Pot was murdering his people by the millions.
They say it's always good to have the tenth and twentieth of an ounce 24k coins on hand for these types of emergencies.
Makes sense.
Sure but how much competition was there for the same goods?
It's actually very good advice.
Thanks and best of luck. Enjoy the sunshine while you can.
~Z
Yeah that was when central banks were not in money printing collusion. Today it would be much more difficult to guess which foreign currency would come out ahead. Maybe something obscure like the Boliviano.
Interesting you brough up The Magic of Money.
Since it was you who let the "cat" out of the bag, then you should in the interest of full disclosure, note what other earth shattering revelation for the world in that book
Pre-war Schacht had developed a bond financing scheme and had been granted Hitlers personal approval that would pay for the removal of all jooz from der fatherland. The plan was presented to an intermediary in england to be passed along to the grand pubah of World Zionism Inc, Chaim Weitzman, who turned it down cold. pg 59?
Schacht a reliable source? a liar? don't know, but you don't hear anyone mentioning that there were peaceful attempts to resolve that issue without violence.
And here I thought the plan was to motivate Jews to relocate to Israel.
To tell you the truth sometimes I really don't know what to believe anymore. Even whatever possible motive for Schacht to say what he did makes no sense under any circumstances when you think about it.
The muttonheads are so dumb I think they really overestimate the need for force to achieve their objectives. Anyway... life is just too short to worry about it when things are largely going to be whatever they are going to be.
We are just along for the ride.
who is going to buy your gold.
I've been to a lot of countries all over the world and eyes always light up at the sight of gold. It's universal money par excellence.
"Merchants" with plenty don't want to trade for bric a brak, flea market, garage sale garbage.
Merchants have the essentials, they need a means to trade with other merchants.
Gold and silver if they aren't banned are obviously nearly ideal.
Gold and silver if they aren't banned are obviously nearly ideal.
Gold and silver, if they ARE BANNED, will be the most ideal outcome, ESPECIALLY if you have plenty of that when it is banned....
Hello Black Markets...Yeah...
"You want some of this forbidden substance. Have I got a deal for you, pal. What do you have that I want?"
Oh yeah. It will work out about the same as the War on Drugs. And Gold and Silver cannot be detected by Gold Snifffing dogs.
Yeah baby. Ban that shit..please.
Precious metals will likely replace much of the bond market as the preferred safe haven asset.
It may appear to be a different mechanism but it’s just the financial asset pie rebalancing.
The Chinese, Russians, and Indians.
better question .. = who isn't going to buy your gold..?
With gold, the worst case scenario is that you'll get laid.
It is a must read, but Foss apparently read it uncritically and was uninformed as to various market prices during the Wiemar hyperinflation and there relative performance to other assets domestically, and arrived at a very uninformed, if not juvenile conclusion. Tangible assets (while desireable in their own right and for other reasons) are the loser leftovers for the ill prepared and geographically narrow minded. During the Weimar hyperinflation a German would have done better buying the crappy cotton linen one-ply fiat banknotes that John Maynard Keynes himself was busy devaluing to cover British war debts and public spending, just as today a Greek would have done better buying the crappy cotton linen ass wipes of Janet Yellen, who is busy devaluing to cover American war debts and public spending.
Critical thinking and due diligence are rare and invaluable. For the sheeple, there is always group think (and the illusion of being informed, prepared, or cool...)
+1 for Danzig
I think folks who kept their money in Swiss Bank Accounts from the outbreak of World War I until 1945 did just fine.
As long as it wasn't "euro trash cash" but SWISS Francs those "poor people" never had any problems other than with "Anschluss Issues."
Once the entirety of the Contient had been utterly annihilated because of World War II..."just buy the entire thing."
Overwhelmingly those were rich Germans...ironically.
Not that anyone complained.
By the 1950's "the War" had nothing to do with atrocities anymore.
The only difference this time around is that Japanese Yen are the safe haven...not Swiss Francs.
I can't wait for the sequel:
When Money Dies - The Obama YearsInteresting opinion until you got to the part about Japanes Yen. The most outrageous money printer of all prints a safe currency? LOL
The Yen is disabled, I thought you knew that being... well y'know....
Anyone read Stephen Kings economic horror story?
http://www.amazon.com/When-Money-Runs-Out-Affluence/dp/0300205236
Greece be damned. No one wants to see the euro go parabolic.
Crack-up boom, bitchez.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pj1_kA4csuY/UTgupWpsrWI/AAAAAAAADMQ/eXBBAPQBjb...
Using Zimbabwe as a metric when the tipping point is reached the collapse is sudden. As mentioned many times before, I have a Zimbabwe one dollar bank note AE6165624 printed in 2007 and a Zimbabwe fifty trillion dollar note AA0202122 printed in 2008. In less than 24 months they blew up their currency but as a side note, they did have the best performing stock market in the world.
Actually, those $50,000,000,000,000 zimbabwe notes make great graduation gifts.
Don't own any bitcoin myself. I worry about folks being more savvy computer literate, hackers, etc and if it's not in my hand and all that. However if i was Greek or living in Greece any money since the Cyprus fiasco would be in invested in Silver and Bitcoin.
Can't fix STUPID!
Purchasing Handbags and washing machines, that's just plumb crazy.
At least a small plot of land to grow food makes a lot of sense.
the monetary sin of the west : 1971.
The War on Gold Antony C. Sutton 1977
many started from this..
My eyes were opened with the reading of that book.
My Crystal Ball.
Everything which he described was happening and was going to happen is just panning out on a much larger scale.
But he failed to see the strength of being the World's Greatest Creditor Nation at that time and did not foresee the Volcker Gambit.
Otherwise the US Dollar would have been dead in 1981 as he forecasted.
But Volcker spent that bullet and now we are the World's Largest Debtor Nation. So that trick cannot be repeated.
People keep pointing to 1971 - but that is reaction - not the cause. The cause is further back in the 1960's when the U.S. single handidly engaged in the expensive Vietnam war, single handidly attempted to put men on the moon, and did this while it was creating the entitlement state called the Great Society. These three things bankrupted the country - eventually forcing it off the gold standard.
The Moon Program was never more than 5% Budget and that expenditure peaked in 1966. It was only spent for two years at that rate.
Currently the NASA Budget is less than 1% Budget and has been that way for many, many decades.
The Great Society Social Welfare Programs were quite a chunk of Budget. But that WAR in Vietnam was not as expensive as you may believe. The actual costs were DOD Weapon System Development and Deployment in fighting the Cold War.
Thermonuclear Missiles and the infrastructure to utilize them are very, very costly. Furthermore there were many other research projects, many still classified as Black Projects, where funds disappear down holes and never were accounted for. Furthermore we have some clues that some of these developments were successful. (The F117A Stealth Fighter..The B2 Bomber...)
How much do you think that the facility at Area 51 cost? Well...You will never know, will you?
Has Aurora, the hypersonic bomber, been deployed?
Agreed, cause and efect, but there was ONE other major factor : US oil sector became importer!
That if anything was an even bigger game changer to US's balance of trade.
But things came to a boil in 1971 and that is why the world changed financially from BW revoke onwards.
"Even though the Greek currency crisis isn’t a traditional hyperinflationary crisis"
Uhm...lol? Isn't it the opposite of hyperinflation right now? Nobody have any money right now, the entire society is bleed dry of cash and desperately trying to get their hands on some. I believe the term you are looking for is deflation! If you have cash in Greece right now you are king and can make the deal of a lifetime.
Will it be followed by some sort of hyperinflation? Who knows...but this isn't it.
I may have jumped the gun but he cetainly missed the boat.
Hyperinflation occurs when people lose faith in their currency and since the currency is not the drachma but the euro deflation will reign supreme temporarily.
I've never heard of an economic collapse scenario occuring where a currency appreciated in value for long.
Shouldn't be long before we're adding the Euro - http://fiatobituaries.com
Also see the excellent read Fiat Money Inflation in France.
I used to get hard time for pushing gold on here.. but I seen this shit coming years ago and I believe physical GOLD is the safest position one can take. Problem is, as already mentioned numerous times, ordinary Joe public knows lots about Kim Kardashian's fat ass but fuck all about Physical gold.. Thats why I post on ZH... you guys are ENLIGHTENED. if we educate a few people, get them saving a few grams each month.... well maybe in a year or 2 or 4 they might just thank us for it.. they have some AU ... we have some AU ...and we all earn a few $€ for our effort. --ITS AS GOOD AS ITS GOING TO GET GUYS..
I dont know what you all do for a living...,but i know you will never get into a more lucrative business for as little capital outlay ever... period.. fuck me i'd charge you more just to get you registered for taxes for opening a regular high street store. There has been a few good guys from ZH that has joined me because the see the potential and are not too pompous to believe its beneath them - cheers guys.
is it a quick buck.. hell no... you gotta earn your keep... just like any business... but it pays really well if you put in the grease..only question you got to ask yourself.. have you the balls for a bit of networking...
Look guys .. this thing works... if you're unsure.. contact me I will reassure you.. Im certainly not a idiot and I'm not a spammer... but I do want to help ordinary people get some AU. I got a kick in the balls yesterday from some ZHer who reckons that our affiliate programme was going to somehow wind up fucking his friends and family over by having a stack of gold... not sure what his logic to that is... my family are quite happy having a little stack of the phyzz.
and finally its not an MLM... its simply referral.. same as amazon..so dont get your knickers in a knot about it being not ligit.
www.teamramgold.com
Stop trying to scam people. it isn't nice and it docks you points when you enter the nethersphere.
http://bullion.nwtmint.com/index.php
http://www.silvertowne.com/
https://sdbullion.com/
There a-hole. I just helped anyone who has no idea how to get gold to get it. And I did not spam, nor try to drag them into some stupid pyramid scheme. Now buzz off.
Pawns in the Game William Guy Carr
Count Your Dead They Are Alive!: Or, a New War in the Making Wyndham Lewis
Being fascinated with price inflation since a teenager, I have read this, and many more.
With that said, I can say without hesitation that during great periods of inflation money does not die, but society does.
The banksters' printing does more than plunder the wealth of the victim society, but also guts its civilization, and takes its soul. The people are robbed of their future each day in increments, and find the need to run faster and faster to stay caught up. Eventually they start to run over and step on each other in the race, the quest, to survive, and the race then becomes a stampede.
All of the same negative effects that manifest themselves during great inflations have materialized within the American society, albeit at a slower rate. From 1913 on, the banksters' grift has been slowly here applied, and so the effects have, like the creep of addiction, only slowly taken root. Those roots though have grown long, and deep, within the banksters' rocky and barren soil, fertilized only with their counterfeit poison.
Now, while the people are ultimately responsible for themselves and their condition, they are not responsible for the desert of grift and plunder they find themselves having to traverse. A desert created by the banksters' plundering and looting, and like a desert, robs the people's very essence, their life blood, leaving them thirsty and starved.
However, with buzzards circling overhead, the American people are still up and walking. Still moving, and will, if they rise to the top of that last dune ahead, see out on the horizon their salvation, teaming with the water of Liberty, and the food of prosperity. That dune is their dignity that they must rise up, the top of which they will then see spread out before them the verdant forests of "No!," the lush hills of truth. and the perilous valleys of resistance to tyranny.
Retrieve our dignity, reclaim our Liberty, and retrieve our prosperity from the plunder and tyranny that stole and tarnished them, and rebuild ourselves and America.
See you on the battlefield, or hear you from one of Zion's basement cells.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission..
Zion brings only decay, rot, and stench, gangrene, to a society.
No need to read these interesting tomes; all one has to realize is that governments are inept and NEVER have solved a MAJOR problem; the only slight exception to this rule would possibly apply to the Soviet Union which successfully turned back the invasion by massive German armies during WWII. However, this monumental achievement was due to the bravery, intelligence and ingenuity of the Soviet people without which the government would have been totally impotent....
It was Stalin vs Hitler,and both were incompetent. Evenly matched, the Germans beat the Russians every tme, but the USSR had vast empty lands, and huge pools of cannon fodder from the east.
And freezing winters and mass production of crappy tanks.
The Greeks are terrrorists by definition.
There are huge misconceptions about German hyperinflation in 1920-ties. Here is some background.
After WWI Germany's emporium collapsed, Germany lost about 15% of it territory and was left with enormous burden of reparations to Entente and huge internal/external debt. On the top of it Germany lost their colonies and/or influence over world markets and trade.
An on the top of it they were facing Bolshevik type of revolution in 1918/19 mainly due to demobilized soldiers who came back home after loosing war into industry with closed factories and no jobs.
After Russian revolution there were voices to ease financial burden on Germany and stem unprecedented rise of socialist and communist movements in Germany well before any fascist movement was born. To no avail, France wanted revenge.
That is the basis for hyperinflation. They could not impose austerity since Germans were facing starvation and lost everything during war including breadwinner men, so austerity would mean handing over power to communists and de facto forcing west to continue the war.
So they chose hyperinflation route, meaning they were loading industry with worthless deutchmarks so they could continue employing German men, pretending that recovery was ongoing but effectively steering them away from communist ideology.
Soon this facade was blown out since commodity starving German industry could not lift off under enormous burden of debt.
Hence the only choice left was to accelerate massive monetizing the debt and collapse the currency.
The NSDAP was created as supposed crying call against German elites that seemingly were driving country into abyss but actually it was German bankers' sponsored, controlled opposition to the communist/socialists who polled high.
Now ruling elites are choosing austerity for us rather than hyperinflate since we still have to much fixed assets. But as soon as they extort all fixed assets from us, welcome to 21 century Weimar and last chapter of steeling our labor will begin.
A closer look at the communist threat that Germany was dealing with:
The American Hebrew September 10, 1920:
Good stuff. Thanks for sharing. How do you define fixed assets?
As I listed in my comment above
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-11/when-money-dies#comment-6300748
Anything that has so called use value like a car, machines, tools, house, furniture, household stuff, as well as any commodity, like gold, metals, sugar, flour etc.. Anything that enables you to conduct any business activity or trade since wage or budget job will starve you and your family.
Anything that is necessary for you to go on living or maintain other assets like house e.g. paint, mortar etc.
In hyper inflation the food expenses can reach 100% or more of income as results of arithmetic of prices. It means overall pauperization of society, collapse of standard of living and massive emigration to different currency zone if possible but fortune for cronies of the ruling elite.
It does not mean that we all should loose all before they unleash hyperinflation but the trends are there already.
What's really interesting in this book is the number of very creative ways the governments found to counterfeit.
Quantative Easing is "monetization of debt" ... and that's the simplest of examples of what is going on today. Our government's use of that term illustrates that the Weimar government did not exhaust potential fraudulent terms for what they were doing ... counterfeiting.
Almost none of Americans ever lived hyperinflation country, I did. So here there are few pointers.
1 Doubling prices every month.
2.Doubling of you salary ever 2 months.
3. Workers pay period reduced from every month, week or two to every four hours.
4. All bills and variable rate loans are pre-paid months, years in advance where possible.
5. All fixed loans payments are delayed as much as possible.
6. Entire Salary spent within day or two or even hours to buy bulk commodities mainly food whether needed or not.
7.Consequent breaks in supply chain and trade financing.
8. Empty stores and markets since managers refuse to sell stored goods not to report a loss. Bribery and corruption rampant. Goods distributed to crony.
9. People hoarding commodities, total repudiation of currency, barter trade or foreign currency trades flourish.
10. Black market thriving and used goods market explodes, clothing, shoes etc., you could buy all prohibited items, such drugs, weapons, poisons, explosives, dead bodies or parts etc. stolen from factories, hospitals and graveyards.
11. Prostitution for food or commodities explodes, violent robberies of gold and precious metals on speep rise.
12. Establishment of separate distribution network with low prices for police, military and government employees not accessible to the rest of citizenry.
13. Massive foreign travel/ foreign visitors for goods, private unregulated smuggling and imports explode.
I stop here.
While we do not have hyperinflation we have high inflation in the US , about 40-60% a year if collapse of incomes are included, but still some of the above disturbing signs are with us already today.
Thank you for that summary.
hmmmm gold or gucci hand bag - hard choice
...but the gucci bag comes with a half price coupon for a pedicure! Near a Starbucks too!
" fear of a 50% devaluation of the purchasing power of bank accounts"
I'm not sure reducing your bank account by 50% should be called a "devaluation".
No arguments here, just showing we've been through all this before. See http://GreatRedDragon.com, scroll to 07/23/2009 - Proof of Lying-By-Omission
The title of this eight-page pamphlet is The Struggle of Labor with an Inflated, Unredeemed Currency and Its Paupering Results.
It was published in 1878. You would think we would have learned by now if such knowledge wasn't kept from ordinary folks.
No ads, no tricks and it's free. Save it before this web site gets shut down.
Last October, a Venzuelan woke up, and looked at his pile of fiat and his pile of gold. As he was reading his morning newspaper, he saw that the government announced that his fiat was devalued by 61%. Meanwhile, he smiled, because his gold just went up in value by 61%. Truly barbaric!
I know the Venezuelan. and also an Indian, Malaysian, Arab (90% work in Government), among others.
They all have good jobs and 5kg in Gold. Wow. And then it happened. 50% devaluation of their currencies.
They held a party to celebrate that their Gold value now increased by 100%. Wow again.
The next day, they had to go to work. And then they got their salary. And then they realized that they cannot buy everything they needed as they had done before. Everything was more expensive too. The manufacturers complained about not being able to buy raw materials with the devalued currency.
So, everyone got stuck with their miserable life and the Gold was only a temporary solution just like that car with full tank that very soon need to be filled again.
Ya but...if given the choice between having some gold and some "temporary solution"...or not having gold in that situation...what would you choose?
'When Money Dies' is a classic. It should be required reading.
But then, reading skills, you know...
Next: Zombie Money
I remember the book mentioned a case when one family traded a piano for a month worth of food suply because farmer's wife 'always wanted to have one'. she couln't event play it but hell, she wanted it and farmers had an uper hand in cirsis.