{"id":10040,"date":"2015-07-14T07:06:57","date_gmt":"2015-07-14T12:06:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=10040"},"modified":"2015-07-14T07:06:57","modified_gmt":"2015-07-14T12:06:57","slug":"when-money-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=10040","title":{"rendered":"When Money Dies"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Money Dies<\/a><\/h3>\n

\u201cWhen Money Dies<\/a>\u201d is the title of a 1975 book by Adam Fergusson, in which he describes the downfall of the Reichsmark in Weimar Germany. A fascinating look at that period of history, one can glean quite a few useful pieces of advice on how to survive a currency crisis. But \u201cwhen money dies\u201d could also describe the current currency crisis in Greece, in which many Greeks seem to have taken those lessons from Fergusson\u2019s account of the Weimar hyperinflation to heart.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even though the Greek currency crisis isn\u2019t a traditional hyperinflationary crisis, many Greeks are trying to get their hands on, and then spend, cash. One of the fears is that bank depositors will be\u00a0forced to take losses on their accounts<\/a>, the so-called \u201chaircut\u201d. This happened in Cyprus to some larger depositors, but the fear in Greece is that people with even just a few thousand euros in their accounts might be forced to take losses of 30-50% or more. Just imagine that you have $10,000 in your bank account and overnight the government says, \u201cSorry, your account balance is now $5,000.\u201d Overnight, the purchasing power of your bank account has been cut in half.<\/p>\n

\"Pensioners<\/a>
Pensioners try to get a number to enter a bank to get part of their pensions in Athens. 7-1-15. (AP Photo\/Daniel Ochoa de Olza)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So even though the government isn\u2019t printing more money (yet!), the fear of a 50% devaluation of the purchasing power of bank accounts is causing Greeks to line up at ATMs to withdraw money. And because there is the additional fear that Greece may exit the euro, with unknown consequences, many people seek to convert their euros into\u00a0tangible goods<\/a>. Shoes, handbags, refrigerators, gold, jewelry, anything that can maintain value and be resold or bartered is fair game for those desperate not to lose all of their hard-earned savings.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Money Dies \u201cWhen Money Dies\u201d is the title of a 1975 book by Adam Fergusson, in which he describes the downfall of the Reichsmark in Weimar Germany. A fascinating look at that period of history, one can glean quite a few useful pieces of advice on how to survive a currency crisis. But \u201cwhen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[7280,53,1035,1976,280,1167,413,536,6092,871,7279],"class_list":["post-10040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-liberty","tag-adam-fergusson","tag-bank-deposits","tag-cash","tag-currency-crisis","tag-euro","tag-greece","tag-hyperinflation","tag-money","tag-twoicefloes","tag-weimar-germany","tag-when-money-dies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10040"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10041,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10040\/revisions\/10041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}