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It can be a viable course of action for an economy with extreme debt levels.

For example, Japan.

http://www.smh.com.au/money/japan-prepares-to-print-more-mon... http://online.wsj.com/articles/boj-unexpectedly-eases-policy...

The BOJ is now almost the entire demand of new Japanese Government bonds. You can say Japan is printing all the new money it needs to fund its 50% fiscal deficit.

In the past 2 years, the yen has reduced in value by a least a third against the dollar: https://au.finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=JPYUSD=X&t=2y&l=on&z=l&q...

One step after another Japan refuses to accept the failure of its own banks and excess government spending, and is walking towards the direction of central bank failure.

EDIT: I don't mean to say Japan is in a state of hyperinflation but to say if it continues to avoid major effects happening to its economy, e.g. Significant reduction of government spending, hyperinflation is one possible final outcome, akin to a computer crashing after hours of refusing to deallocate memory from terminated processes. Debt repudiation, confiscation and war are other possible outcomes.




Devaluations in the range of even 90% aren't hyperinflation. Hyperinflation is "wheel barrows of money for bread". It is a scale and rate of devaluation that does not allow informed financial decisions about the market to be made.

It is very different to a currency falling a large amount of its value over the course of a couple of years. People have time to divest, predict, etc. - otherwise engage in normal business activities.


Didn't it also happen in Zimbabwe?


XorNot carefully avoided that recent case by specifying "in the western world".


Zimbabwe is a failed state. They abandoned having a currency at all.


> In the past 2 years, the yen has reduced in value by a least a third against the dollar

What does that have to do with hyperinflation? Let's assume, for no particular reason, that the dollar inflates at 1% a year. For the yen to fall in dollar-measured value by a third over the same two years, it would need to inflate at an annual rate of 23.7%, or just under 1.79% per month. Nobody calls that hyperinflation. Compare the original definition of hyperinflation as inflation rising above 50% per month.

(Admittedly, there is a current standard[1] which views annual inflation in excess of 26% as a risk factor. But, first, 23.7 is less than 26, and second, they require other factors such as "the general population is unwilling to hold monetary instruments" and "prices are quoted in foreign currency". Do you see that happening in Japan?)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation


That's a big assumption that Japan's actions are not going to be a disaster.

Anything that can't go on forever, won't.




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