Hyperinflation 2010

   http://www.shadowstats.com/article/hyperinflation-2010.pdf


    Dear Fernando,

    I have read your book and found much of it both interesting and valuable. I would like to make a recommendation that you summarize each chapter in the next addition. ie things to do, and not to do. Another way to look at it is “the Cliff Notes”. This makes a quick review.

    For those of us who already have purchased the book, I would like to be able to purchase an ebook summary. Maybe something available through Paypal.

    On another issue, I have attached a link to the Shadow Stats article on “Hyperinflation 2010” that just came out. (let me know if you can not access it, and I will send a copy).  I am very interested in your opinion on the part starting page 32 “Hyperinflationary Great Depression” as compared to what you have experienced.

    I find it interesting that Mr. Williams writes that there will be a shortage of physical paper currency. Is that what you had experienced? He also writes that Howard Ruff commented that the barter system would take some time to be establish. Again, what was your experience?

    Please be elegant with your comments as Mr. Williams is well respected in the gold and finance world, and his information is quite unique and valuable. I am not sure that he himself has lived through or experienced a hyperinflation or a barter system and may be a bit off here. Please let me know what you think.

    Thank you

    J.C.

Hey J.C. , what do you mean?  I'm always "elegant" with people... or at least I try yo be. ;-)

Those are good suggestions for the second edition of my book. I'll take them into account, thanks. A lot of people have been suggesting a Kindle edition but I've been reluctant since you can't scribble all over it, its sort of a fragile platform and not exactly bomb proof or something that would last long during a disaster (no power), but a lot of people have been asking for it for some time.

About your questions,

The shortage of paper money is likely to occur, and yes it happened here too. Anyone that was here during the 2001 collapse will tell you the same thing. People wanted to physically "hold" their own money while banks of course stole it. Yes, indeed, you wanted cash on hand. At the same time both the gov. and banks where desperate to convince people to use debit cards instead. This was a way of controlling the transactions, but also avoid the need to print money like crazy. That makes the devaluation worse, and you dont want to have the printer running all day when the currency is already collapsing, its like throwing a match to a pond of gasoline. It didn't help though that most stores only accepted cash in those days, jeje . People dont know it, but the US government is already working this problem as I write this and its been doing it for years now. Cash in US is portraited as "out of fashion", even ATM give only a laughable amount of cash per day. Get this: The LIMIT of USD you can get from an American Bank ATM in Argentina (messed up country to begin with) is TWICE AS MUCH as the MAXIMUM limit allowed in U.S. ATMs. We can look at it through all sorts of pink glasses but that is NOT a good sign.

About barter, I think its a valuable skill to train and all, not that different from the haggling you use in any other transaction, but we've seen barter fail in the long run, I mean you already read it in my book, its just too complicated to do it at large scale for a long period of time. We simply can't avoid needing money. There's ample info on the different barter clubs, and that's pretty much the consensus on why they ultimately failed. There still are places to do it, some people swear by them, but even themselves admit barter has unsolvable limitations. Do it when/if you cant, but know its not going to replace the economy we've had for several thousand years already.

As always, no easy answers, and these topics are complex, without an easy, simple to understand answer. As a wise man once said "For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong."


FerFAL