You'll get a bear economy, leading to the eventual deflation and collapse.
Fun fact: it was not hyperinflation in Weimar Germany that led Hitler to power but _deflation_ because of its insistence on sticking to the gold standard.
Countries used gold or metals either directly as currency or to back paper currency for hundreds of years. If their governments overspent they collapsed.
Saying you need inflation or you get hitler is pretty wild.
Not really. You need inflation, or you end up with stagnation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C3%B6rgl#The_W%C3%B6rgl_Expe...
That's what inflation does, everyone gets paid less, but they don't realize it because they just see the same number coming in and more going out.
And then because of that, somehow noninflationary currency results in hitler in 8 years (even though it was used for hundreds of years).
I think you should look at the other end, which is governments going broke and not being able to inflate their way out of it.
It did not. The economic system that was in place for hundreds of years kept the population in a permanent state of depression. Most people had barely enough money to buy necessities.
The economic growth exploded, surpassing _millenia_ of innovation within mere _decades_ once we got rid of the golden chains.
But I guess that you fancy yourself being landed gentry and not a landless serf?
Says who?
people had barely enough money to buy necessities.
Where are you getting that? I think you're confusing and conflating all sorts of things like human advancements with inflationary money. I'm sure what you're saying makes sense if you think every invention, discovery and gain of knowledge was from people having their money inflated, but there isn't any evidence of this, it's just you restating it.
The economic growth exploded, surpassing _millenia_ of innovation within mere _decades_ once we got rid of the golden chains.
That really only happened in the 70s, it wasn't exactly the dark ages before that.
Err... Have you ever studied history?
> Where are you getting that?
From learning the basics of history? Before 1900-s famines were common, and most people were illiterate.
> That really only happened in the 70s, it wasn't exactly the dark ages before that.
Got it. You live in an imaginary world.
In reality, the first inflation happened when the European civilization established contact with South America. It rapidly expanded the monetary base and provided an impetus to economic development.
Then paper money (and equivalent debt-based mechanisms) were invented and became popular, and this turbocharged everything.
I just explained history to you, you realize being patronizing and repeating yourself isn't evidence right?
From learning the basics of history? Before 1900-s famines were common, and most people were illiterate.
Do you think the printing press, the engine and large scale agriculture might have more to do with food and literacy than inflation?
All those problems were solved before the US went off the gold standard anyway.
In reality, the first inflation happened when the European civilization established contact with South America. It rapidly expanded the monetary base and provided an impetus to economic development.
You realize this doesn't make sense right? This idea that printing money somehow leads to all human advancement is bizarre, even for someone who is ignoring all the things I said before. If two cultures crossed oceans do you think the advancement might come from international trade or do you think some tribe in the jungle could make up a currency, start printing it off, then go straight on to skyscrapers and video games?
All this is just a gish gallop anyway, you never bothered to explain how not having inflation "causes hitler in 8 years" even though it's only been the last 50 years that we have been off of backed currency.
You also didn't confront the fact that anyone can put their money in stocks, bond or gold and essentially have a deflationary currency but they still spend money anyway.
no growth that whole time, other than when you go to war and expand your gold supply by taking somebody else's.
the positive sum present is much better than the zero sum past
No, it was pretty much up until the early 1900s
Do you have a source for this? AFAIK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_the_Weimar_R...
I personally edited this very Wikipedia article several times, but my changes got reverted by goldbugs who want to memory-hole it.
This article has a nice explanation: https://www.hertie-school.org/fileadmin/user_upload/20191101...
If you don't believe the numbers from it, they can be corroborated easily.
And most importantly, the deflation was directly caused by Germany's insistence on staying on the gold standard. And this has been an almost ironclad law: large countries that insist on gold standard end up with stagnating economy.
If you want another interesting tale from the opposite side of the spectrum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C3%B6rgl#The_W%C3%B6rgl_Expe... - it's a town that was issuing "decaying" money in 1930-s and this helped to revitalize its economy.
Another example often cited by Paul Krugman was Washington's childcare coöp, but it's a bit too small-scale.
Just because two things are correlated in time, doesn't mean they are necessarily causally linked. Surely there are multiple factors at the same time behind the rise of a demagogue. In the case of Hitler the grievances of WWI played probably a much bigger role than economic problems.
Economic problems was a big part though, the 1929-33 great depression. It features heavily in political literature pushed by the Nazi party leading up to takeover. You know, like "Arbeit und Brot", etc.