Page:Stabilizing the dollar, Fisher, 1920.djvu/84

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30
STABILIZING THE DOLLAR
[Chap. II

suddenly stopped increasing, and about two months later prices stopped likewise. Similar striking correspondences have continued to occur. Figure 9 shows these.

The same sort of correspondence (with a probable three months' lag) has been found by Nicholson [1] for England and (by inference, at least) by Cassell [2] for Russia.


9. Kinds of Inflation.

It is well known that a great increase, i.e., " inflation," of paper money raises prices. But there are two other forms of inflation which do so also, gold inflation and credit inflation.

War finance is the prolific source of inflation. The war has exemplified this in all three forms. Russia indulged in the simple crass inflation of paying Government bills by printing irredeemable paper. Before the Bolshevist régime the Russian Government printing presses turned out, according to reports, a million roubles an hour, day in and day out, for over a year at a stretch. Under Bolshevism the output has been even greater, a total of eighty billion dollars in nominal value having been issued, which is more than the money of all the rest of the world put together. It is reported also, on apparently good authority, that, under the Bolshevist regime, the Russian Bureau of Printing and Engraving has issued counterfeit Spanish paper money and used it in Spain for Bolshevist propaganda.

The Bolshevist Government, in this case, swindles

  1. J. Shield Nicholson, War Finance, p. 100.
  2. Gustav Cassel, "Present Situation of the Foreign Exchange," Economic Journal, March and September, 1916.