Thinking About Thinking

I thought this was a poignant observation by Fareed Zakaria in his book, The Post-American World:

“Hyperinflation is the worst economic malady that can befall a nation.  It wipes out the value of money, savings, assets, and thus work.  It is worse even than a deep recession.  Hyperinflation robs you of what you have now (savings) whereas a recession robs you of what you might have had (higher standards of living if the economy had grown).  That’s why hyperinflation has so often toppled governments and produced revolution.  It was not the Great Depression that brought the Nazis to power in Germany but rather hyperinflation, which destroyed the middle class by making its savings worthless.”