No one attacked you until you got entirely, totally, and completely idiotic. You literally (I assume you know what that means) posted articles to “support” your argument and then failed entirely to acknowledge when others point out those very articles disprove your thesis. If me (or someone else) is talking about the 1920’s you pivot to 1914 and counter any argument with, and this is my favorite,
Try once…just once…proving it is a false claim by sticking to the post, series, and the actual chronological order of human life. People come at you eventually because you plant a flag and then defend it to the point of ludicrous postings. I honestly have no idea what you studied in college, but it wasn’t History and if it was you needed to demand a refund.
So, we can settle this quite simply…without referring to pre-WWI economics…offer actual evidence that the Weimar Republic didn’t go bankrupt because of COST of borrowing foreign money (exacerbated by France’s occupation of the Rhur). Simply writing “they promoted too much money,” isn’t evidence…WHY did they print too much money? Next, prove to us how the post-war Weimar Republic is remotely related to the United States economy of the 2020’s. Don’t divert, don’t tell us you have “already proved that,” you have not. My dare is simple…stick to the debate at hand and answer questions directly when others (including me) point out where you are wrong - show us (like using actual quotes from the articles you say you’ve read) what you know…not what you think.
There
@Mirage is my dare to you. And trust me…I’ll point it out when you deflect to cover your lack of evidence and I’ll agree with you when you have it right.
Griz, I have already done this in this thread, but I'll do it again if you'd like. I never jumped around timelines, and we were discussing the same timeline all along... the hyperinflation in the Weimar republic.
You claimed that, "the Germans were wracked with war reparation payments and those payments (in kind and in cash) were linked to gold. As gold prices shifted the Germans found themselves paying continuously higher prices to provision the mark thus redefining its currency downward." However, the mark was not tied to gold, as they did away with the gold standard prior to the war (a critical fact that is the only reason I ever referenced 1914). As I explained twice in this thread, the Allies initially demanded to be repaid in marks at the pre-war value, but ultimately agreed to be repaid in their own currencies instead.
Germany then printed marks to buy Allied currencies, then used their currencies to repay the debt. This is the reason they printed marks, as you requested. Here are some non-paywalled sources:
"In order to pay the large costs of World War I, Germany suspended the convertibility of its currency into gold when that war broke out."
"the Reparations Commission required payment to be in gold marks
or in foreign currency, not in the rapidly depreciating paper mark."
"Beginning in August 1921, Germany began to buy foreign currency with Marks at any price, but that only increased the speed of breakdown in the value of the Mark.[16] The lower the mark sank in international markets, the greater the amount of marks were required to buy the foreign currency demanded by the Reparations Commission."
"John Maynard Keynes described the situation in The Economic Consequences of the Peace: "The inflationism of the currency systems of Europe has proceeded to extraordinary lengths. The various belligerent Governments, unable, or too timid or too short-sighted to secure from loans or taxes the resources they required,
have printed notes for the balance."
Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic occurred in 1922–23 and resulted in millions of German citizens being bankrupted.
www.britannica.com
"By 1920 the
value of the
mark was 16 times less. It stabilized at 69 marks to the dollar for some months. The Weimar government was still in a position to get a grip on the economy; instead, it chose to
print yet more money in order to pay the reparation
debt. By July 1922 prices had risen by some 700 percent, and
hyperinflation had arrived."
en.wikipedia.org
"From August 1921, the president of the Reichsbank,
Rudolf Havenstein began a strategy of buying foreign currency with marks at any price, without any regard for inflation, and it only increased the speed of the collapse in value of the mark,
[10] meaning more and more marks were required to buy the foreign currency that was demanded by the Reparations Commission.
[11]... The strategy that Havenstein had been using to pay war reparations was the mass printing of bank notes to buy foreign currency, which was then used to pay reparations, but this strategy greatly exacerbated the
inflation of the paper mark.
[14][11]"
I could keep going, but I think you get the idea. Nowhere did I find mention of the German payments being only in goldmarks, as you claimed, and never did I see mention of gold price fluctuations causing the inflation, as you claimed.
Next, you asked me to:
prove to us how the post-war Weimar Republic is remotely related to the United States economy of the 2020’s
The Weimar Republic found itself in a ton of debt. It had the same limited options to get out of it that we do. The option it chose was to print its way out, and that led to hyperinflation. If our debt continues to grow unabated, my point is that we will find ourselves in a similar situation, where it is nearly impossible to tax, grow, or shrink the budget enough to get out of it. This can happen once our interest payments get to be an absurd percentage of our annual budget. The option we might choose is the same as the Weimar Republic, and the result will be the same here as it has been in every other country that has tried it. Perhaps we will get lucky and avoid hyperinflation to the tune of >50% per month, but much lower inflation of
only say 50% per year would be absolutely devastating (2022 was 8.3%, for reference).
Last, you said:
And trust me…I’ll point it out when you deflect to cover your lack of evidence and I’ll agree with you when you have it right.
So which is it... where is my lack of evidence? Or will you finally grow up, stop throwing insults to deflect from your objectively false claims, and admit you were wrong? If you still think the Weimar Republic didn't print it's way out and cause hyperinflation, then where is
your evidence? Can you post a single legit source that says that?
finance.yahoo.com
