3 ms·
I grew up in Costa Rica in the late 70's and early 80's. The country had massive currency devaluation because they started printing massive quantities of curre
by iamelgringo 17y ago
I grew up in Costa Rica in the late 70's and early 80's. The country had massive currency devaluation because they started printing massive quantities of currency to pay their foreign debt. The exchange rate went from 8 Colones : $1 to 130:$1 in a matter of a few short years.
People started hoarding dollars and those that had commodities did very well. There was a very brisk black market trade in foreign currencies.
My father purchased a small car, at the begining of the currency crash and frove it into the ground on the terrible riural roads and then sold it 5 years later. He made a $30 profit on the deal because car prices had gone up so dramatically.
We did fine, because we got paid in dollars, but the people around us really suffered.
- Tangurena 17y agoThe hyperinflationary meltdown in Zimbabwe comes to mind as well. I bought a number of 100 Trillion zimdollar notes off ebay and handed them out at work. Each person I handed one to, I told them about how they tried to handle the inflation by chopping zeros off at the end, until this year when they cut 12 zeros off the end of numbers and shortly afterwards stopped printing their own currency. Before my father was born, his family lived in Germany and because they had their wealth in US dollars, they were spared the trauma of the German hyperinflation of the 20s. Many of the people he knew growing up had been wiped out by that period. What a mess. It could happen here.
- catzaa 17y agoI just spoken with a Zimbabwean (in South Africa). What happened in Zim is a fuckup. This guy's sister was raped (and eventually killed herself in South Africa). There money is less than worthless. The only thing that saves the populace is subsistance farming and money from people working (illegally) in South Africa.