Monday, November 8, 2010

The benefits of inflation

  Inflation destroys savings as the price of goods and services exceed the value of your savings. The value of your savings remain stagnant while the value of goods and services increase. Inflation however is godsend for debt. The value of your debt remains stagnant, while the value of goods and services continue to increase. Banks anticipate this by charging interest rates. They want to make sure that interest rates always exceed inflation thus they do not end up being the losers in financing people's habits. And that is why hyperinflation is an awesome godsend for debtors. Because banks do not anticipate such a surge in the money supply and do not calculate it into their interest rate charges. Hyperinflation exceeds both the principle and the inflation charged as well. And when that happens, debts are easily paid off.


  Contractually there is often no bar to a debtor clearing his long term debt with "hyperinflated-cash" nor could a lender simply somehow suspend the loan. "Early redemption penalties" were (and still are) often based on a penalty of x months of interest/payment; again no real bar to paying off what had been a large loan. In interwar Germany, for example,much private and corporate debt was effectively wiped out; certainly for those holding fixed interest rate loans.

  100 thousand German Marks is often difficult to come by. Thus when you owe that amount, it could take generations to pay off. But due to hyperinflation. People are up to their knees in money thus loans can be paid off instantly.

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