People tend to think that hyperinflations are caused by central banks recklessly printing too much money, and all they need to do to stop it is to turn off the printing press. If it were that easy, hyperinflations would almost never occur! Instead, inflation spirals push policy makers into circumstances where printing is the least bad of several terrible options. In the case of Weimar Germany, the cost of not printing was not only potential economic collapse, but political fragmentation. France’s repeated threats to occupy German territory if reparations were not paid made halting the printing
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