tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53246864840716464.post3839303651730491342..comments2024-02-29T00:46:38.800-08:00Comments on Washingtons Blog: What Hyperinflation Looks LikeUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53246864840716464.post-47425002199738100762011-05-06T17:49:40.668-07:002011-05-06T17:49:40.668-07:00Ellen is right. Hjalmar Schacht (if I remember the...Ellen is right. Hjalmar Schacht (if I remember the name correctly) was the comptroller of the currency in Weimar and he put the blame on speculation and (it may have been in Ellen's book) it was the reichsbank that caused the problem and it wasn't until they were reeled in that the hyperinflation stopped.<br /><br />As for the rest, MMT is an attempt to describe the reality of our monetary system and has a very different take on all this austerity nonsense. People would do right for their country by looking it up and trying to understand the reality of a sovereign country that pays its bills in its own currency. (Hint: we can never go broke)SovereignMoneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13614579923710895323noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53246864840716464.post-55589270500565712642011-05-06T07:51:31.815-07:002011-05-06T07:51:31.815-07:00The difference with the approach taken by modern c...The difference with the approach taken by modern central banks is that instead of physically printing paper, they are issuing massive amounts of debt and electronically issuing currency to purchase that debt (70% of the debt issued by the US government for example, not to mention what's happening in Europe).<br /><br />So the end-game will be different, although likely as bad - we just don't know in what ways. The limiting factor will be that as long as interest rates are non-negative, the debt service costs will eventually overwhelm the entire amount of debt rolled over. It should be easy enough to forecast the point at which the interest payments become 100% of GDP as a function of interest rate, deficit and time, given publicly available data.Steve Warthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11504652590059785955noreply@blogger.com