4/8/14

"Troubled Currencies Project black-market exchange-rate data"


"Regimes in countries undergoing severe inflation have a long history of hiding the true extent of their inflationary woes. In many cases, governments fabricate inflation statistics to hide their economic problems. In the extreme, countries simply stop reporting inflation data. This was the case in Zimbabwe, a country that recorded the world's second-highest hyperinflation. Results of research determined that Zimbabwe's hyperinflation peaked in mid-November 2008, at a monthly rate of 7.96 × 1010% — roughly 8 followed by 10 zeros.

...Many countries have followed this course — failing to report any usable monetary data and neglecting to report inflation data in a timely and replicable manner. Those data that are reported are often deceptive, if not completely fabricated."

Steve H. Hanke
The Troubled Currencies Project
Johns Hopkins University

http://www.cato.org/research/troubled-currencies-project

On March 23, 2006, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System 
will cease publication of the M3 monetary aggregate

US Federal Reserve Announcement
November 10, 2005

If a nation prints more money
like cutting a 16 inch pizza into 12 slices instead of 8
is each slice worth less?

What if the pizza shrinks while the number of slices rise?

In the absence of the gold standard
there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation

There is no safe store of value

Alan Greenspan

If one family has meat and another is growing vegetables
could the meat family accept an I Owe yoU for some present meat
in exchange for some future vegetables, plus extra to compensate for waiting,
like borrowing from a bank?

If the Veggie family exchanges present sustenance for future need
is the IOU money and the extra interest, like buying groceries with a credit card?

If the Meat family exchanges a Veggie IOU for an axe
is the transaction dependent on the IOU’s perceived value,
like the trade-in value of a used car?

Could widespread consensus of an over-abundantly large crop
make the Veggie IOU worth less axe,
like buying local corn after harvesting a bumper crop?

What could happen if the Veggie family issues or is thought to have issued
more IOUs than planted seeds?

Athenian money…defined a pattern 
which was to repeat in other empires which were to follow
dominance of trade
influx of gold to balance exports
 public wealth
 liberty
 overconfidence
the discovery of loosely managed money
as a stimulating solution to stagnation in an economy near its zenith…
before finally the emptiness of the monetary promise was exposed
leading to rapid national collapse

Paul Tustain

If Germany’s central bank suspended the right
to redeem gold backed Reichsmarks during World War I
and 170 Reichsmarks bought an ounce of gold in January 1919,
why did an ounce of gold cost 87,000,000,000,000 Reichsmarks
in November 1923?

The excess credit which the Fed pumped into the economy
 spilled over into the stock market
triggering a fantastic speculative boom

Belatedly, Federal Reserve officials attempted to sop up the excess reserves
 and finally succeeded in braking the boom

But it was too late
 by 1929 the speculative imbalances had become so overwhelming 
that the attempt precipitated a sharp retrenching
 and a constant demoralizing of business confidence

Alan Greenspan
Conceded free-market deregulatory ideology was flawed in October, 2008

Why did the US stop exchanging paper dollars for gold and silver
after printing more without raising taxes
to pay for Vietnam and socialized benefit programs?

Have American legislators and the Federal Reserve
been abusing the dollar’s status as a reserve currency
to avoid overtly raising domestic taxation
by covertly taxing US dollar denominated assets like oil by over-printing money?

Are taxes rising or falling if workers, savers and investors are exposed
to inflationary capital confiscation?

Inflation is one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation

Milton Friedman
Economic Nobel Laureate

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