I can't speak about economic hit men. However, in 1983 I was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Technological Research, on the campus of University of Sao Paolo. The inflation rate was terrible. However, the Brazilian government required banks to protect deposits against inflation, increasing them to keep the purchasing power of the money constant. The Institute put my salary in the bank when I arrived, and drew it out to be converted into dollars when I left. That way I didn't lose anything to their runaway inflation.
Wow! So you saw with your own eyes what Brazil was passing through. It was a terrible time for Brazilians. You went to the market for a product and the same product, in the next week, could be with a double cost!