Thread by @anilsaidso

1/ “When a nation's money is no longer a source of security, and when inflation has become the concern of an entire people, it is natural to turn to…other societies who have already undergone this most tragic and upsetting of human experiences.”

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2/ “The agony of inflation, however prolonged, is perhaps somewhat similar to acute pain — totally absorbing, demanding complete attention while it lasts; forgotten or ignorable when it has gone..”

3/ “In the eight years since 1913, the price of rye bread had risen by 13 times; of beef by 17. Sugar, milk, pork and even potatoes had risen between 23 and 28 times; butter had gone up by 33 times.

These were only the official prices — real prices were often a third higher”

4/ “Evasion of taxation, fear of socialisation, and inflation have combined to drive capital out of countries with a depreciated currency into countries where the currency is sound or at a premium”

5/ “Social unrest was one of the obvious symptoms of inflation.

Germany's politicians therefore set about relieving the symptoms wherever possible. More measures were brought in so that the government might be seen publicly to be dealing with profiteering.”

6/ “all classes of the population have for months been speculating with a fine disregard for common-sense. Shares have been freely bought in totally unknown concerns, in some cases with the object of exchanging valueless paper money for what was considered a good security”

7/ “Many thought that their money would soon have no value whatsoever and that it must be exchanged for goods while there was time: others realised that the purchasing mania would help the falling rate of exchange to raise prices, and therefore bought on speculative grounds.”

8/ “those who had supported the government during the war by buying State bonds had lost heavily by the depreciation of the mark, and the whole population were now engaged in evading taxation and devoting their money to speculative purchases”

9/ “That the German government was now confronted with the problem of a whole community of taxpayers making, wherever they could, false returns..

The growing disillusionment — almost universal already, in all conscience — with the government itself.”

10/ “Before the war, when the mark was sound, there were normally about 9,500 bankruptcies a year. As wartime inflation increased, the number regularly dropped, from 7,739 in 1914, to 807 in 1918.”

11/ “Berlin enjoyed an extensive strike early in February of public employees, which halted the railways.

..before the city's water was cut off consumption was three times the normal as everybody filled up baths and every other receptacle to meet the occasion.”

12/ “It was natural that a people in the grip of raging inflation should look about for someone to blame. They picked upon other classes, other races, other political parties, other nations.”

13/ “it still appeared to most Germans that the dollar was going up, ..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.”

14/ “Neither they, nor the politicians, nor the bankers — with distressingly few exceptions — perceived any direct connection between inflation and depreciation. And yet, as the printing presses churned out bank notes the exchange continued rapidly to fall.”

15/ “Those lucky enough to have the monopoly power of an organised trade union to protect them were still in the shelter. They faced their employers, the German manufacturers as well as the central and local governments, with theoretically crippling wage demands.”

16/ “In view of the rocketing cost of labour, the eagerness of manufacturers to extend their works, renew their plant and embark on large improvement schemes was at first sight somewhat extraordinary.”

17/ “From a social point of view, too, so much commercial building was unfortunate in a country now short of over a million houses — in part the result of the rent restriction Acts which had throttled the private sector of the building industry.”

18/ “Industrial circles were faced with the danger that cash would become more valuable than goods, and of a crash when everyone attempted to convert their assets back into money again.”

19/ “The better German industrial concerns had particular reason for satisfaction with their lot. They might look weak financially, but many possessed enormous concealed reserves because their debenture shares and.. debts had been contracted on the basis of the gold mark”

20/ “The mighty Stinnes group, for one, was still working on gold capital. The fall in the value of the paper mark, however, had written off'98 per cent of the gold debt — to the companies' gain and to the shareholders' loss”

21/ “commercial enterprises could obtain credit at very low discount rates even at the height of the crisis in 1923, were automatically written off in the same way: rapid depreciation caused the real value of repayments to be smaller than the original loans”

22/ “over one-sixth of the country's industry had been largely built on the advantageous foundation of an inflationary economy, paraded a social conscience shamelessly. He justified inflation as the means of guaranteeing full employment..”

23/ “prosperity existed for some…on the surface. Those eating well in restaurants were those who could afford to eat well in restaurants. As money saved diminished like a lump of ice on a summer's day, there was in any case every incentive to eat it, drink it or be merry on it.”

24/ “the circumstances of a situation which no one really understood made those who had lost their savings or their fortunes ready prey for anti-Semitic propaganda. The Chancellor would accept no connection between printing money and its depreciation.”

25/ “At what might otherwise have been the height of the immediate crisis at the end of July 1922, the Reparations Commission decided to take its summer holidays, effectively postponing any settlement of the exchange turmoil..”