galloping inflation (1)

slow price increasing are one thing .But when each increase in prices becomes the signal for increase in wages and costs , which again sends prices up still further ,we may be in the midst of a malignant , galloping hyperinflation. nothing good can be said for a rapid rise of prices such as took place in Germany in 1920-1923 and more recently in chine and Hungary . production and even the social order are than disorganized . the total wealth of large groups of the population is wiped out as money becomes worthless . Debtors ruthlessly pursue creditors in order to pay off their obligations in valueless money . Speculators profiteer . housewives rush to spend their husbands paychecks before prices rise still further , but in doing so they only bid prices up even faster . As a southerner said during the Confederate inflation:
we used to go to the stores with money in our pockets and come back with food in our baskets . Now we go with money in baskets and return with food in our pockets. Everything is scare except money ! Prices are chaotic and production disorganized . A meal that used to cost the same amount as an opera ticket now costs twenty times as much .Business is often at a standstill because no one knows how much to charge . (we will settle after the war ,some say) as a result , every body tends to hoards "things" and to try to get rid of the "bad" paper money , which drives the "good" metal money out of circulation . A partial return to barter inconvenience is the result.