by MonteQuest » Mon 20 Dec 2004, 01:23:17
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('savethehumans', '"')Unsettling."
I guess that's what the crash is gonna be, too, huh?
In Weimar Germany, 1923, the greatest example of hyperinflation ever experienced occurred. The following is the historic slide:
July 1914…4.2 marks to the dollar
January 1919…8.9
July 1919…14.0
January 1920…64.8
July 1920…39.5
January 1921…64.9
July 1921…76.7
January 1922…1919.8
July 1922…493.2
January 1923…17,972
July 1923…353,412
August 1923…4,620,455
September 1923…98,860,000
October 1923…25,260,208,000
November 15, 1923…4,200,000,000,000…yes, trillion.
By late 1923, the German government required 1,783 printing presses, running around the clock, to print money. Germans wheeled shopping carts filled with literally trillions of marks to pay for a single loaf of bread. Employees asked to be paid their wages each morning so that they could shop at noon before merchants posted the afternoon price rises.
The New York Times ran a story on October 30, 1923, datelined Berlin, which told the tale of an American who went into a restaurant and handed the waiter a dollar, asking for "all the food an American dollar will buy." The waiter recovered from his astonishment and began to serve the guest.
"Soup, several meat dishes, fruit and coffee were served. While the guest was smoking his cigar the waiter brought another plate of soup, and later another meat dish.
" 'What does this mean?'" the astonished and satisfied guest asked.
"The waiter bowed politely and replied: 'The dollar has gone up again.'"
Spiraling inflation also wiped out people on fixed income along with the small savings they had put aside for retirement.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')Annuities, pensions, proceeds of insurance policies, savings accounts in the banks, income from bonds and mortgages - every form of revenue which had been arranged for at some time in the past, and which often represented the economy, foresight, and personal planning of many years - now turned to nothing. The middle class was pauperized and demoralized."
[Source: "A History of the Modern World"]
But not everyone suffered in Germany.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')Big industrialists and landlords goaded the government to deliberately let the mark tumble in order to free the State of its public debts, to escape from paying reparations and to sabotage the French in the Ruhr. The destruction of the currency enabled German heavy industry to wipe out its indebtedness by refunding its obligations in worthless marks. The fall of the mark wiped out war debts and thus left Germany financially unencumbered for a new war.
