James,
Adding to the understanding of yesterday’s fine article “Net Producer-Net Consumer Equations for Self-Sufficiency: Getting Out of the Pit”, there is some serious historical data that your readers should be aware of. The Ludwig von Mises Institute has posted a book called “When Money Dies” on the experiences of the hyperinflation of the Weimar [Republic of Germany], which reads like headlines out of today’s newspapers. Remembering that history never repeats, it always rhymes, many of the underlying themes — the differences between country and city — will likely be similar. Because governments also have access to the same historical information, they will try to find new ways to distort the economy to the detriment of their citizens. An excerpt:
“Only the country people were surviving in Germany in any comfort: anyone who lived off the land had the readiest access to real values. It was not surprising that even when they ensured that the money receipts for their goods were no more than equivalent in purchasing power to what they were used to, they were accused of extortion — the more so if they delayed the sales of produce in the full knowledge that prices would be higher the longer they waited. Erna von Pustau went to stay in the country and asked her hosts bluntly what they were doing with all the money they were squeezing out of the townspeople. They replied candidly that they were paying off their mortgages. The principle of Mark gleich Mark (Note: this was German government propaganda to try to convince citizens that Paper Equaled Gold — a complete fantasy as the printing presses ran non-stop) had helped agriculture enormously: for the country people, landowners, farmers or peasants, life had started again. At the end of August 1922 when the mark passed 2,000 to the dollar — 9,000 to the pound — a mortgage of seven or eight years’ standing had been 399/400ths paid off. When Frau von Pustau returned home the talk in the family was about prices going up, about the credits which had to be reduced, about the middle-class party, about big business and the workers who always asked for more … The contrast between country and city was so enormous that it cannot be understood by people who have not lived through it.”
The cities will definitely become very, very uncomfortable and insecure places to exist. Best Regards, – CK