When Money Dies: The Nightmare of Deficit Spending, Devaluation,

Review

Daily Express (London)
ΓΓé¼┼ôEngrossing and sobering.ΓΓé¼┬¥

Allen Mattich, Wall Street Journal, October 1, 2010
ΓΓé¼┼ôOne of the most blood chilling economics books IΓΓé¼Γäóve ever read.ΓΓé¼┬¥
Product Description

When Money Dies is the classic history of what happens when a nationΓΓé¼Γäós currency depreciates beyond recovery. In 1923, with its currency effectively worthless (the exchange rate in December of that year was one dollar to 4,200,000,000,000 marks), the German republic was all but reduced to a barter economy. Expensive cigars, artworks, and jewels were routinely exchanged for staples such as bread; a cinema ticket could be bought for a lump of coal; and a bottle of paraffin for a silk shirt. People watched helplessly as their life savings disappeared and their loved ones starved. GermanyΓΓé¼Γäós finances descended into chaos, with severe social unrest in its wake.

Money may no longer be physically printed and distributed in the voluminous quantities of 1923. However, ΓΓé¼┼ôquantitative easing,ΓΓé¼┬¥ 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 countryΓΓé¼Γäós deficitΓΓé¼ΓÇ¥necessity or profligacy, unwillingness to tax or blindness to expenditureΓΓé¼ΓÇ¥it is beguiling to suppose that if the day of reckoning is postponed economic recovery 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.


http://www.amazon.com/When-Money-Dies-Devaluation-Hyperinflation/dp/1586489941/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1292592053&sr=8-1