Effects of War and Hyperinflation On Wealth and Commerce
Hyperinflation, wars and revolutions cause hording of essentials and a disruption of markets. In some past hyperinflations, workers were paid daily and immediately spent their earnings on essential goods, which they often used for barter. Store shelves were frequently empty.
More stable foreign currencies, silver and gold (usually coins) were held and exchanged in place of local currency. The minting country of precious metal coins tended to be relatively unimportant. Jewelry was also used as a medium of exchange. Alcoholic beverages were also used for barter.
Desperate individuals sold valuable possessions to buy essentials or traded them for gold and silver.
In the German hyperinflation stocks held much more of their value than paper currency. Bonds denominated in the inflating currency may lose most or all value.
Read more about this topic: Economic Collapse
Famous quotes containing the words effects of, effects, war, wealth and/or commerce:
“Whereas Freud was for the most part concerned with the morbid effects of unconscious repression, Jung was more interested in the manifestations of unconscious expression, first in the dream and eventually in all the more orderly products of religion and art and morals.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“I am fearful that the paper system ... will ruin the state. Its demoralizing effects are already seen and spoken of everywhere ... I therefore protest against receiving any of that trash.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“There never was a good war or a bad peace.”
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)
“Science, which cuts its way through the muddy pond of daily life without mingling with it, casts its wealth to right and left, but the puny boatmen do not know how to fish for it.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
“On September 16, 1985, when the Commerce Department announced that the United States had become a debtor nation, the American Empire died.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)