Lessons on inflation

If sales of obscure, out-of-print book titles are any indication, financial gurus seems increasingly troubled by the prospect of significant inflation in the US and Europe. With interest rates at zero or near-zero per cent, American and European central bankers have pumped out tremendous amounts of money to prop up their economies. Under ordinary circumstances, it would be a recipe for massive price instability. Hence some bankers have been keen to read first-hand accounts of what the world looks like in an era of hyperinflation. As Ambrose Evans-Prichard of Britain’s Daily Telegraph explains, they’re opening up the history books to learn lessons from pre-WWII Germany.