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 And suddenly
there is a bull market in 2 books on hyper inflation.
After directing readers to 2 free online versions of "Dying of Money"in my last
post, I am happy to present a link to Adam Ferguson's "When Money Dies" which
at the time of writing has an asking price of $800 at Amazon.
If you don't want to shell out such a sum, surf here to read the book online.
I recommend you save the web page locally to your hard disk as the link of
this copyrighted book could go down anytime.
The British Independent wrote the following about this rare
classic written after the oil shock in the early 1970s:
The book was
scarily topical when it was first published in 1975, after the 1973 Arab-Israeli
war, when the oil producing nations had got together as a cartel, quadrupled
the price of oil and set off double figure inflation in Western economies.
Fergusson, an Old
Etonian journalist and political activist, seized the moment to present a
graphic description of what happened the last time a developed economy was
hit by hyperinflation. His subject was Germany's Weimar Republic, that
turbulent democratic interlude between the fall of the Kaiser and rise of
Adolf Hitler – and particularly the early 1920s, when the German mark
became worthless.
Fergusson went on
to be a political adviser to Sir Geoffrey Howe, the Chancellor on whose
watch, in the years 1979-83, inflation was beaten, though at great cost.
After that, people stopped thinking about what it might be like to live in a
society where money could not buy anything worth having – until the US
confidence in its economic system was hit by the seismic shock of the banking
crisis of 2008. Then old copies of When Money Dies came down from the shelves,
the dust was blown off them and people pored over its descriptions of
everyday life in Weimar Germany.
Warren Buffett,
that great capitalist sage whose prowess as an investor has made him the
world's second richest man, is said to have advised a Dutch financier to read
the book as a cautionary tale about what could happen if governments run up
such excessive debt. No one seems to know which Dutch financier was the
recipient of this advice, or when, but the rumour helped push the potential
sale price of secondhand copies of Fergusson above £1,000. This month,
a small publisher rushed out a new paperback version.
I have not
been able to pin down the new paperback version, reportedly selling for a
Tenner. Any reader's hints in comments are highly welcome.
Price swings for "Dying of Money" have
been extreme in the last days. I have seen the book on ebay today at only
€102 with 12 bidders so far and the auction running another day. Only
yesterday it had an ask of $1,800 at Amazon, which has crashed to $250 at the
time of writing.
Toni Straka
Editor, the Prudent Investor
Toni Straka is an
INDEPENDENT Certified Financial Analyst (OeVFA, EFFAS) who worked as a
financial journalist for 15+ years and now evaluates global market trends.
Analyzing financial and political news permanently he wants to share his
insight with those who understand that we are in an era of global
redistribution of wealth. The US-European centric approach does not work
anymore. Five billion people in the developing countries now demand their
fair share of the world's resources.
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