1. If you had this bill in your wallet, what would you spend it on?

6. Hyper-Inflation A 50% or more increase in prices per month.
Caused by governments printing a lot more money than necessary to buy the goods the economy produces.
A way to quickly eliminate government debt.
A self-fueling cycle (inflation expectations).
PARTNER/SHARE: If hyper-inflation happened here, what steps would you take to benefit from it or at least survive?
How might people take advantage of this situation to enrich themselves? By 1923, the mark was one trillionth of its 1919 value. Farmers stopped accepting paper money in exchange for crops and starvation and unrest resulted (including the Beer Hall Putsch). The Weimar Republic declared a state of emergency, temporarily suspended the Constitution, and ordered everybody to turn in their money to a bank in exchange for a new “Gold Mark.” This new mark was linked to the price of gold, meaning that not one bill could be printed unless the German Central Bank increased the equivalent amount of gold it had in storage. HOWEVER, Germany had almost no gold! This is where the USA stepped in with massive loans of gold. This eventually killed hyper-inflation, though it hurt a lot of people by crashing the economy + massive unemployment. The loans stopped with the Great Depression.

7. Highest Monthly Inflation Rates in History
Country
Currency name
Month with highest inflation rate
Highest monthly inflation rate
Equivalent daily inflation rate
Time required for prices to double
Hungary
Hungarian pengő
July 1946
4.19 × 1016 %
207 %
15 hours
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe dollar
November 2008
7.96 × 1010 %
98 %
24.7 hours
Yugoslavia
Yugoslav dinar
January 1994
3.13 × 108 %
64.6%
1.4 days
Germany
German Papiermark
October 1923
29,500 %
20.9 %
3.7 days
Greece
Greek drachma
October 1944
13,800 %
17.9 %
4.3 days
China
Old Taiwan dollar
May 1949
2,178 %
11%
6.7 days

8. Weimar Germany: 29,500 % monthly inflation (1923)

9. You kids are so annoying! Go outside and play with your money!

11. Getting some value out of her salary.

12. Pay Day

14. Balancing the household’s budget

15. 460 billion marks for sausage