Tuesday, June 29, 2010

James Turk: The U.S. Is Following The Same Path As Weimar Germany

I've emphasized many times the striking similarities between the U.S. today and Germany during the Weimar period (1918 - 1933).  I just listened to Turk's interview on King World News and I thought it would be useful to hear the "U.S. is Weimar" pontification from someone who I consider to be more educationally useful than were any of my professors at the University of Chicago Business School.  This quote should wet your appetite: 
We're following what happened in Weimar Germany very very closely. Before the hyperinflation actually occurred, they went thru a period that they actually thought was deflation [note: sound familiar?] because it felt like deflation. But the currency continued to lose purchasing power and ultimately the Government continued to spend [sound familiar?]. What the Government did under Havenstein's [head of the Reichsbank] command is they basically bought that Government paper and turned it into currency [today's Quantitative Easing]...The U.S. Government believes it can spend money and jump-start the economy...Bernanke thinks he can jump-start economic activity by making money cheap...
Ultimately what Turk refers to as "crank economics," implemented in Germany and being implemented by Bernanke, will lead to serious hyperinflation.  Turk points out, as I did last week, that at this point the only choice the Fed has is to crank up the printing press and devalue the currency. 

Here's the link to the interview.  It's only about 10 minutes and well worth your time:  James Turk

2 comments:

  1. GOP Chooses Tax Cuts for Billionaires Over Jobless Benefits for the Unemployed

    http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/gop-chooses-tax-cuts-billionaires-over-jobless

    This is getting interesting by the day ( popcorn )

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  2. The Doomer in me loves the frosted side of Kellogg's frosted flakes.

    Buying Silver today.... because it is the right thing to do.

    ReplyDelete