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A recent similar example was the Indian move in 2016 to demonetize the ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes with very little notice, which is in retrospect widely viewed to ha

A recent similar example was the Indian move in 2016 to demonetize the ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes with very little notice, which is in retrospect widely viewed to have been a disaster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Indian_banknote_demonetisation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Indian_banknote_demonetis...

yieldcrv 2y ago
The article references it in a short sentence
guenthert 2y ago
There were multiple motives for that move, notably however not among those an attempt to curb inflation.
theshrike79 2y ago
IIRC the reasoning was that only criminals have large amounts of valuable notes and by demonetising them they'd hit the criminals where it hurts. But it turns out that tons of people in rural India had their life savings under mattresses in large denomination bills...
- lacy_tinpot 2y ago
  It essentially forced people into getting a bank account.
  - theshrike79 2y ago
    Yea and caused massive queues of people desperately trying to deposit their cash before the deadline :)
astockwell 2y ago
I imagine Finland's would be similarly branded a disaster if the present-day internet/social media megaphones had existed.. History books on 1945 aggressive monetary policy change: "The public didn't like it" History books on 2025 aggressive monetary policy change: "The public went frigging bananas, doxxed their leaders, coordinated widespread disobediance on the scale of GME, etc" (Granted I live in the US, and that's putting it mildly how the US would react)
toast0 2y ago
Wasn't that contemperaneously viewed to be a disaster? I have to wonder if there was a unspoken real reason they did it, because it was obvious anybody with lots of demonitized bills would farm out the redemption if necessary, and wikipedia reports 99.3% of notes were redeemed. Maybe the 0.7% was (some of) the black money that was targetted, or maybe that's a normal amount of lost and damage beyond redemption. Otoh, maybe there was some highly classified but credible advance notice that the crimimal underground was about to start printing credible 500 INR notes en masse.

yieldcrv 2y ago

The article references it in a short sentence

guenthert 2y ago

There were multiple motives for that move, notably however not among those an attempt to curb inflation.

theshrike79 2y ago

IIRC the reasoning was that only criminals have large amounts of valuable notes and by demonetising them they'd hit the criminals where it hurts. But it turns out that tons of people in rural India had their life savings under mattresses in large denomination bills...

lacy_tinpot 2y ago
It essentially forced people into getting a bank account.
- theshrike79 2y ago
  Yea and caused massive queues of people desperately trying to deposit their cash before the deadline :)

astockwell 2y ago

I imagine Finland's would be similarly branded a disaster if the present-day internet/social media megaphones had existed.. History books on 1945 aggressive monetary policy change: "The public didn't like it" History books on 2025 aggressive monetary policy change: "The public went frigging bananas, doxxed their leaders, coordinated widespread disobediance on the scale of GME, etc" (Granted I live in the US, and that's putting it mildly how the US would react)

toast0 2y ago

Wasn't that contemperaneously viewed to be a disaster? I have to wonder if there was a unspoken real reason they did it, because it was obvious anybody with lots of demonitized bills would farm out the redemption if necessary, and wikipedia reports 99.3% of notes were redeemed. Maybe the 0.7% was (some of) the black money that was targetted, or maybe that's a normal amount of lost and damage beyond redemption. Otoh, maybe there was some highly classified but credible advance notice that the crimimal underground was about to start printing credible 500 INR notes en masse.