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“Everyone loves an early inflation. The effects at the beginning of inflation are all good. There is steepened money expansion, rising government spending, increased government budget deficits, booming stock markets, and spectacular general prosperity, all in the midst of temporarily stable prices. Everyone benefits, and no-one pays. That is the early part of the cycle. In the later inflation, on the other hand, the effects are all bad. The government may steadily increase the money inflation in order to stave off the latter effects, but the latter effects patiently wait. In the terminal inflation, there is faltering prosperity, tightness of money, falling stock markets, rising taxes, still larger government deficits, and still roaring money expansion, now accompanied by soaring prices and an ineffectiveness of all traditional remedies. Everyone pays and no-one benefits. That is the full cycle of every inflation.”

 

-       Jens O. Parssons, ‘Dying of Money: Lessons of the Great German & American Inflations’.

 

“Is there any reason why the American people should be taxed to guarantee the debt of banks, any more than they should be taxed to guarantee the debts of other institutions, including the merchants, the industries, and the mills of the country ?”

 

-       Senator Carter Glass during Senate debate on the Banking Act of 1933 (the Glass-Steagall Act).

 

“We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.”

-       Winston Churchill.

 

Adam Fergusson begins his magisterial analysis of the Weimar collapse (‘When Money Dies..’) as follows:

“When a nation’s money is no longer a source of security, and when inflation has become the concern of an entire people, it is natural to turn for information and guidance to the history of other societies who have already undergone this most tragic and upsetting of human experiences.”

As Fergusson points out, studies of the period, of all kinds, tend to come with a common shortfall: they ignore the human element. Here, then, are some of the human stories recounted within his work..

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Comments

[impotenta]

The download link isnt working :(

[Geoff Castle]

Great post. Simple and to the point with an interesting group of quotes.

GC