Zimbabwe for hyperventilators 101
Know your hyperinflation. Must read by Bill Mitchell.
Zimbabwe is the new Weimar Republic. Not! Zimbabwe is the front-line evidence that shows that government deficits will generate hyper-inflation. Not! Zimbabwe is the demonstration of the folly of a fiat monetary system. Not! Zimbabwe is an African country with a dysfunctional government. Yes!
First we should make sure what we are talking about. The right think that when the workers get a pay rise it is inflation. It is not. The left think that when the corporate sector increase the price of a good or service it is inflation. It is not. It is also not inflation when the exchange rate falls pushing the price of imports up a step. It is also not inflation when the government increases a particular tax (say the GST) by x per cent to some new level.
So while a price rise is an essential pre-condition – a necessary condition – for what we call inflation it is not a sufficient condition. That is, the observation of a price rise will be required to define an episode as being inflationary (at some point) but observing a price rise alone will not be sufficient to categorise the phenomena that you are observing as being an inflationary episode.
Inflation is the continous rise in the price level. That is, the price level has to be rising each period that you observe it. So if the price level or a wage level rises by 10 per cent every month, then you have an inflationary episode. In this case, the inflation rate would be considered stable – a constant rise per period. If the price level was rising by 10 per cent in month one, then 11 per cent in month two, then 12 per cent in month three and so on, then you have accelerating inflation. Alternatively, if the price level was rising by 10 per cent in month one, 9 per cent in month two etc then you have falling or decelerating inflation.
If the price level starts to continuously fall then we call that a deflationary episode.
Hyper-inflation is just inflation big-time!
When money dies
Just a reminder on what happened in Germany when too much printing hit the Economy. Let’s not forget, inflation is now running higher than GDP growth…
Fergusson discusses how the hyperinflation affected different groups in German society in different ways — with debtors benefitting and huge numbers of middle-class savers wiped out. Riots, corruption and political extremism were just some of the malignancies encouraged by the hyperinflation. He points out that those who held hard currencies as well as people who held tangible assets like gold and silver were in-large part protected from the worst economic consequences of the hyperinflation. In his words: “gold remained at all times in Germany the measure of what was important to them.” Video below.
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