Customer Reviews

Routledge Library Editions: Economics: The Economics of Inflation: A Study of Currency Depreciation in Post-War Germany, 1914-1923 (Routledge Library Editions-Economics, 84)

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The English translation was published in 1937, so the language is a bit old fashioned, with terms like "milliard" instead of billion. Basically an advanced economics text, I found the going on this rather slow. Some of the graphs are really arresting, such as the one of the Deutchmark in late 1923 which looks scarily like the Nasdaq in 2000.

Bresciani-Turroni's chapter on the social implications of the Weimar inflation is compelling; his understanding of who profited mightily and who was ruined and why is powerful and timely at a moment when a number of world governments including the USA are busily printing money at a faster and faster clip.

The notion of finding scapegoats (speculators and foreigners), the government's unwillingness to take any responsibility for its actions (blame the foreigners), and the tremendous economic and social costs (suicide, malnutrition, crime, et al) of hyperinflation make for sober and enlightening reading.

However, the book is expensive. Perhaps the best recommendation I can make is that I often find myself returning to chapters in this book to help me understand current economic events.

This book is a MUST READ by any serious investor particulary in our times. The author was an Italian economist stationed in Berlin during the whole Wiemar Republic. What more credible source does one want?

Yes, the book is heavy trudging. Yes, the language is antiquated by U.S. terms. But the graphs (oh, the graphs are STUPENDOUS) for they clearly demonstate how a fiat currency (e.g. the USD) can exponetually evaporate in very short order when people loose confidence in it.

The book clearly names some of the "winners", but the vast majortiy were "losers", because they did not forsee the problem and ACT on it. Again, it is "heavy sledging" but it a "Must READ" for those who not only want to survive but to be "winners".