Imagine that a customer has just placed the largest order you have ever received, and he is prepared to pay cash for immediate delivery. Your response? You thank him and explain that you can't afford to fill the order, in spite of the fact that you have enough inventory. You explain further that you gave your employees a 10 percent pay hike last week, and they will be demanding another within the month. The price of your most important raw material went up 12 percent yesterday, and to purchase more you will need a loan, with interest rates currently running at 6 percent monthly. In spite of your increased wage and supply costs, you can't raise your own prices because the government refused your latest price increase request. If you fill your customer's order, you will actually lose money. This scenario, in one form or another, is not uncommon in economies with soaring inflation rates, and has become practically routine in countries like Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia. But I am not asking you to imagine what it would be like to run a business in South America, where the situation is often worse than the one I just described. I am asking you to imagine what it might one day be like in the United States.
Thus begins the preface to the book, The Hyperinflation Survival Guide: Strategies for American Businesses, written by Harry E. Figgie, Jr. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Figgie International Inc.
On Amazon, you can get the book for $13.86 in paperback, and $23.24 in hardcover. Here's the Amazon blurb about the book:
Of the books published regarding hyperinflation, this may be the only one that provides effective strategies for operating a business under conditions of a rapidly depreciating currency. "The Hyperinflation Survival Guide: Strategies for American Businesses" was written by Dr. Gerald Swanson (an associate professor of economics at the University of Arizona). Harry E. Figgie, Jr. sponsored the research and production of this book. As it was originally printed in 1989, it was way ahead of its time. However, this doesn't change the fact that this book will prove to be an excellent resource for businessmen and individuals once the Federal Reserve's destruction of the U.S. dollar enters its terminal stage.
That's right, this book was written in the aftermath of Black Monday, the same timeframe as when Another's work on this subject began. FOA wrote:
This work started back in 1988, not long after the 87 crash. Important people were asking some very serious questions about the timeline of the world monetary system.
Another's group wasn't alone in this line of thinking. Here's an AI-generated overview of Figgie International:
Figgie International Inc. was a major American diversified manufacturing conglomerate and Fortune 500 company built through the aggressive acquisition of dozens of businesses. Harry E. Figgie Jr. founded the company in December 1963 after purchasing the struggling "Automatic" Sprinkler Corporation of America in Youngstown, Ohio. Originally known as A-T-O Inc., the company was renamed Figgie International Inc. in June 1981 to honor its founder and chief executive. The enterprise moved its headquarters from Willoughby, Ohio, to Richmond, Virginia, in 1982, later returning offices to Ohio. By the late 1980s, the conglomerate comprised over 30 divisions and 36 subsidiaries, employing roughly 17,000 people with annual sales peaking around $1.3 to $1.5 billion.
Figgie International owned and operated a wide array of prominent and diverse consumer, industrial, and military brands, including:
Scott Aviation (respiratory and safety systems)
Rawlings Sporting Goods
Fred Perry Sportswear
American LaFrance (fire trucks and apparatus)
Badger Fire Extinguisher Company
George J. Meyer Company
The Downfall: Driven by heavy spending on management consultants, top-heavy management, and outdated subsidiary equipment due to strict short-term cost-cutting, the company suffered major financial losses and a severe liquidity crisis in the early 1990s. To survive mounting financial pressure, the conglomerate sold off core units and later changed its name to Scott Technologies, Inc. to focus primarily on its Scott Aviation line. Harry E. Figgie Jr. died in 2009 at the age of 85.
The book that Harry E. Figgie, Jr. sponsored and wrote the preface to is now available for free in a variety of formats from the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/TheHyperinflationSurvivalGuideStrategiesForAmericanBusinesses/page/84/mode/2up
Permission is hereby granted to reprint all or a portion of this material provided Figgie's copyright notice is used and a credit line is included for: The Hyperinflation Survival Guide: Strategies for American Businesses, sponsored by Figgie International, Inc. ISBN: 0-9741180-0-1
Aquilus sent me four hyperinflation books. I haven't had a chance to read them yet, but I thought it might be fun and timely to do a kind of book club and read them one at a time together, and that way we can discuss them in the comments.
I decided to start with the one that is free to download, so here are the links to download The Hyperinflation Survival Guide: Strategies for American Businesses in various formats:
EPUB
TEXT
And here is the Table of Contents:
The other three books are:
Starving Billionaires: The History of Inflation and HyperInflation: How Governments and People Battled the Last 10 Great Inflations
by Kendrick Fernandez
"Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber and as deadly as a hit man.
This quote, by a popular former US President, reflects the suffering of millions of innocent victims of runaway inflation and hyperinflation throughout history.
The reality of hyperinflations is exponential price increases, worthless currency, and food shortages. They are normally preceded by war, revolution, famine, or pandemics. In some cases, they are the results of decades of fiscal malpractice. Inflation has become a prominent subject of discussion in the United States and across the world.
There have been dozens of recorded hyperinflations in modern history. The most devastating hyperinflation happened just after World War II in one of the Axis powers when prices surged by 4.19 quintillion percent. One quintillion is one followed by 29 zeros. Prices doubled every few hours. The most recent hyperinflation episode has been happening in Venezuela since 2016. America has never had hyperinflation, but they came close twice. This book looks at ten prominent hyperinflations across history. We look at what led to the hyperinflation, the first troubling signs, and government malpractices. We also pay close attention to life for the common man, life for wealthy Government officials, and popular inflation hedges employed by people and businesses. Finally, we look at how the country attempted to solve the inflation problem and deleverage the currency.
Here's What's Included In this book:
How HyperInflation led to the rise of Hitler and World War II
How HyperInflation led to the most significant Revolution in History
How Ancient HyperInflations led to serfdom in the Middle Ages
How two Great US Inflations almost destroyed the country and its future
How North Korea recently tackled HyperInflation
Common patterns among all HyperInflations
Even if you live in the most fiscally responsible country in the world, you will benefit from the information in this book.
Also included are 3 additional bonuses:
A model Portfolio to handle Inflation
Inflation Hacking Guide
Dividend Investing During Inflation Guide"
When Money Destroys Nations: How Hyperinflation Ruined Zimbabwe, How Ordinary People Survived, and Warnings for Nations that Print Money
by Philip Haslam and Russell Lamberti
"The collapse of the Zimbabwe dollar in 2009 after years of rampant money printing is a frightening example of what lies in store for countries that resort to printing money to pay national debts, bail out banks and oligarchs, and enrich political elites.
When Money Destroys Nations tells the gripping story of the disintegration of the once thriving Zimbabwean economy and the inspiring and tragic accounts of how ordinary people survived in turbulent circumstances. Philip Haslam and Russell Lamberti give a straightforward and revealing account of the causes and consequences of Zimbabwe's hyperinflation.
Countries around the world are resorting to money printing with their stimulus packages and quantitative easing. Zimbabwe's economic collapse is not an isolated tragedy. It holds lessons for all countries and for all political leaders tempted to take illusory and perilous shortcuts to prosperity. Zimbabwe's lessons must not be ignored.
This is the story of When Money Destroys Nations."
Germany 1923: Hyperinflation, Hitler's Putsch, and Democracy in Crisis
by Volker Ullrich
"From the New York Times best-selling historian comes a gripping account of the crisis of the Weimar Republic, when hyperinflation and political upheaval threatened to unravel a new experiment in democracy.
As the great Austrian writer Stefan Zweig confided in his autobiography, written in exile, “I have a pretty thorough knowledge of history, but never, to my recollection, has it produced such madness in such gigantic proportions.” He was referring to the situation in Germany in 1923. It was a “year of lunacy,” defined by hyperinflation, a political system on the verge of collapse, and separatist movements that threatened Germany’s territorial integrity. Most significantly, Adolf Hitler launched his infamous Beer Hall Putsch in Munich―a failed coup that nonetheless drew international attention and demonstrated the Nazis’ ruthless determination to seize power.
In Germany 1923, award-winning historian Volker Ullrich draws on letters, memoirs, newspaper articles, and other sources from the time to present a captivating new history of those explosive twelve months. The crisis began when the French invaded the Ruhr Valley in January to force Germany to pay the reparations it owed under the Treaty of Versailles, which had ended the Great War. For years, German leaders had embraced inflationary policies to finance the costs of defeat, and, as Ullrich demonstrates, the invasion utterly destroyed the value of the German mark. Before the war, the exchange rate was 4.2 marks to the dollar. By November 20, 1923, a dollar was worth an incomprehensible 4.2 trillion marks, and a loaf of bread cost 200 billion. Facing the abyss, many ordinary Germans called for a national messiah. Among the figures to vie for that role was Hitler, a thirty-four-year-old veteran who possessed a uniquely malevolent personal magnetism. Although the Nazi coup in November was put down and Hitler arrested, the putsch showed just how tenuous the first German democracy, the Weimar Republic, was at its core.
As Ullrich’s panoramic narrative reveals, other Germans responded to the successive crises by launching a cultural revolution: 1923 witnessed the emergence of a multitude of new movements, from Dada to Bauhaus, and of such iconoclasts as Bertolt Brecht, George Grosz, and Franz Kafka. Yet most observers were amazed that the Weimar Republic was able to survive, and the more astute realized that the feral undercurrents unleashed could lead to much worse. Publishing a century after that fateful year, Germany 1923 is a riveting chronicle of one of the most challenging times any modern democracy has faced, one with haunting parallels to our own political moment."
I'm not set on which order we'll read the last three, but I'm leaning toward the order in which I listed them (in case anyone wants to acquire them now). So, if any of you have read any of these books already, please let us know what you thought of them. And for those reading The Hyperinflation Survival Guide: Strategies for American Businesses now, please feel free to comment as you go. Just be sure to include the quote from the book that you are referring to, since page numbers are not consistent across digital formats.
Sincerely,
FOFOA
