[blam]

[Jack Hydrazine]

Shades of the Weimar Republic and Zimbabwe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Republic

How to Turn 100 Trillion Dollars Into Five and Feel Good About It
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703730804576314953091790360.html

A 100-trillion-dollar bill, it turns out, is worth about $5. That’s the going rate for Zimbabwe’s highest denomination note, the biggest ever produced for legal tender—and a national symbol of monetary policy run amok. At one point in 2009, a hundred-trillion-dollar bill couldn’t buy a bus ticket in the capital of Harare.

But since then the value of the Zimbabwe dollar has soared. Not in Zimbabwe, where the currency has been abandoned, but on eBay.

The notes are a hot commodity among currency collectors and novelty buyers, fetching 15 times what they were officially worth in circulation. In the past decade, President Robert Mugabe and his allies attempted to prop up the economy—and their government—by printing money. Instead, the country’s central bankers sparked hyperinflation by issuing bills with more zeros.

[WellyP]

You think?

[Hotlanta Mike]

Trade your Euros to British pound sterling or Swiss francs...

[Venturer]

It’s coming to America too, and soon.

[Longbow1969]

This is possible. One way or the other the Eurozone is going to collapse and the European socialist systems will fall. When the end comes it is going to be a spectacular crash. But I think they can kick the can down the road for a fair bit longer - possibly even a few years. The system can be gamed awhile longer. Using logic and expecting election results like we just saw in Greece and France to kick off the tailspin is misguided. Europeans will do ANYTHING to prop their systems up for as long as possible. They will cook the books even more, they will lie, they will eat even more of the loss on Greece, etc, etc. That’s why when the whole thing really does go belly up, there will be no tools, confidence or trust to at least allow for a soft landing.

[Billthedrill]

It could happen - what typifies a hyperinflationary scenario is that controls are applied too little, too late, once the phenomenon is recognized. What cures the thing is a new currency backed by foreign capital. In Weimar Germany that turned out to be the Rentenmark, and in Zimbabwe they simply stopped using the Zim dollar altogether.

It should be apparent that neither of these alternatives is likely in the case of a really large failure in either Europe or the United States. There simply isn't that much hard currency to be had. And so we continue gaming the system and hoping for a soft landing. I can offer no speculation as to how long they'll be able to keep the ball in the air, and I don't like thinking about what will happen when that is no longer possible.