Guest Post: Our Money Is Dying

"A question on the minds of many people today (increasingly those who manage or invest money professionally) is this: How do I preserve wealth during a period of intense official intervention in and manipulation of money supply, price, and asset markets?

As every effort to re-inflate and perpetuate the credit bubble is made, the words of Austrian economist Ludwig Von Mises lurk ominously nearby:

There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner, as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later, as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.
(Source)

Because every effort is being made to avoid abandoning the credit expansion process -- with central banks and governments lending and borrowing furiously to make up for private shortfalls -- we are left with the growing prospect that the outcome will involve some form of "final catastrophe of the currency system"(s).

This report explores what the dimensions of that risk are. It draws upon both historical and modern examples to try to shed some light on how the currency collapse process will likely unfold this time around. Plus, we'll address how best to avoid its pernicious wealth destroying effects.

When Money Dies

In the book When Money Dies by Adam Fergusson, which details Weimar Germany's inflation over the period from 1918 to 1923, the most riveting parts for me were the first-hand accounts from the people caught in the storm.

So many people left their wealth in the system only to watch it get eroded and utterly destroyed over time. The reasons were many: patriotism, inertia, disbelief, and denial cruelly fed by hope every time prices moderated or even retreated momentarily.

The simple observation is that many people had a blind belief in the money system. They lost their wealth because they were unable or unwilling to allow reality to challenge their beliefs. It's not that there were numerous warning signs to heed -- in fact, they could be seen everywhere -- but most willfuly ignored them.

Most mysterious is the fact that in Austria and Germany, where the inflation struck most severely, there were numerous borders and currencies into which people could have dodged to protect their wealth. That is, protecting one's wealth was a relatively straightforward and simple manner. And yet…it did not happen.

The Many Types of Inflation

As always, the landscape of inflation needs to be carefully mapped before we can begin to hope to have a conversation with a destination. Where the symptom of inflation is rising prices – in fact, rising prices are the only things tracked by the Consumer Price Index, or CPI – the causes of rising prices are many, but they always boil down to the overexpansion of money and/or credit. Knowing the cause is essential to knowing what to do next..."

at http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-our-money-dying