Blast from the Past...or Pictures of our Future?

Time features a fascinating collection of 11 photos, entitled "The Dangers of Printing Money," that help chronicle what life was like during the hyperinflation of the Weimar era.

Bettmann/CORBIS

Tough Times
In the years following World War I, Germany took to printing money to help meet expenses. With inflation spiraling and the mark plummeting, things worsened when the French occupied Germany's industrial Ruhr region. Workers, the middle class and pensioners were hit hardest by the crisis. Here, the Salvation Army serves hungry Berliners in the dark days of 1923.

Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS

Child's Play
Forget toys: with as many as 4.2 trillion marks to the dollar by late 1923, German children played in the streets with worthless money.

Keystone/Corbis

Walking a Tightrope
With the mark almost worthless, bartering made a comeback. Germans are seen here swapping bread, sausages and jam for tickets to the circus.

Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS

Black Market
With dollars a prized possession, two men trade marks for U.S. currency on a street in Berlin in 1922. [Editor's note: I'm wondering if the trade might go in the opposite direction next time around.]

Click here to see the rest.

Comments

[yuan gu]

Geithner Prepares to Meet With Chinese Leaders

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/business/global/28geithner.html?_r=1&hp

“Perhaps the chief issue facing global markets is the extent to which China will continue investing heavily in Treasury bills.”

We have deteriorated into a debtor status so that we are now dependent upon the kindness of strangers. That is not where the world’s leading power should find itself.
Paul Sarbanes

[Rocky]

Less than 10 years after the mark collapsed, Hitler came to power and it was all down hill from then on for the Jews of Germany and later for the Jews of occupied Europe. As I watch the US national debt spiral out of control, I wonder how long the Republic will last. The British, French and Dutch figured out that they could not afford to hold on to their empires after WWII. Will the US figure this out as well before it is too late? In the meantime we continue to spend around $10 billion a month in Iraq and Afganistan.

[davosSherman]

I pray the social fabric is as caring as the above pictures as we iterate through this loop yet again.

I've been doing a lot of reading, and why a lot of things haven't changed with respect to human nature, I didn't see any articles on road rage, car jacking, or people killing one another for 6o dollar sneakers.

Take care. Great post BTW!

[Independent Accountant]

MP:
I have long said Americans are looking at the wrong model for our depression, i.e., our 1929-39 experience. They should be looking at Germany, 1918-23. The people in Germany who made real killings were the foreign exchange speculators. They bought US dollars or British pounds, each of which was gold backed in those days with borrowed reichmarks. They waited 90 days, paid off their reichmark loans with depreciated reichmarks and repeated the process.
I can't see holding euros today. I have no reason to believe they will be a better store of value than dollars.

[fde]

http://www.darkgovernment.com/images/food-riot.jpg

[fde]

http://scienceblogs.com/framing-science/upload/2007/01/Riots.jpg

[roger]

Printing of money is just one part of it. for hyperinflation
to take hold the SPECULATORS must become active.Given the
opportunity, they will.

[Frank]

$10B/mo for Afghanistan and Iraq is trivial compared to the indebtedness we are piling up in these stupid "bailouts". The $11T committed so far amounts to 91 years worth of war spending. And we still have many more banks, financial services companies, insurance companies, states, car companies, etc. etc. to "save".

The only things we won't end up saving is ourselves and our country.

[Boom2Bust.com]

Sobering post Michael. The photo of Germans swapping goods for tickets to the circus emphasizes the importance of self-sufficiency projects and hobby farms.