The Reason for Hyperinflation-phobia
The New York Times can be forgiven for blaming the empty shelves in Caracas to the plunge in oil. However, a raging hyperinflation cleared the cupboards before the price of oil was cut in half. William Neuman’s front page story illustrates what the NYT does best, making economic tragedies personal.
Laboratory assistant Mary Noriega must stand in line for hours with 1,500 others just to buy food, “as soldiers with side arms checked identification cards to make sure no one tried to buy basic items more than once or twice a week.” Ms. Noriega has had to barter with neighbors to put food on the table.
In Thomas Mann’s epic short story describing life in Weimar, Germany, “Disorder and Early Sorrow,” the woman of the house, Frau Cornelius, similarly tries to keep food on the table,
The floor is always swaying under her feet, and everything seems upside down. She speaks of what is uppermost in her mind: the eggs, they simply must be bought today. Six thousand marks a piece they are, and just so many are to be had on this one day of the week at one single shop fifteen minutes’ journey away.
Paul Cantor, in his analysis of Mann’s story, “Hyperinflation and Hyperreality: Thomas Mann in Light of Austrian Economics” points out “how one government intervention in the economy immediately leads to others. Having produced scarcities in the market with their inflationary policies, the authorities introduce new regulations to try to deal with the irrationality they themselves created.”
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