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When Money Dies


When Money Dies, by  Adam Fergusson, is a well-known study of the hyperinflation of the early Weimar Republic years. Here is a passage, referring to the demands of the labor unions in late 1921 and early 1922:


"It was significant enough that union demands were still for higher wages to meet rising prices rather than, before all else, stable prices and a stable currency. A few of the financially sophisticated could be heard blaming the government, and the Finance Minister in particular, but  a typical view was that price went up because the foreign exchange went up, that the exchange rate went up because of speculation on the Stock Exchange, and that this was obviously the fault of the Jews. Although the price of the dollar was a matter for almost universal discussion, it still appeared to most Germans that the dollar was going up, not that the mark was falling: that the price of food and clothing was being forcibly increased daily, not that the value of money was permanently sinking as the flood of paper marks diluted the purchasing power of the number already in circulation."

The law of relativity. If you're sitting in a train and see the other train, in the next track, start to move, you'll need other clues before you determine whether it is in fact your train that is moving.

And "obviously" the Jews are to blame for the respective movements of whichever train.
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