BTW, it is NOT true that the cost of everything is going up in hyperinflation.
It’s the currency that is collapsing!
The classic example is Weimar Marks for bread. The American wheat export market actually had steady to falling wheat prices in real terms. For Germans, destruction of their legal tender by their own government made it impossible for the middle class to function and reduced all of society to extremis.
For those in a position to stay on the wave hyperinflation can be a boon.
Such individuals have ready access to foreign currency, or…
Directly mine gold, silver, copper, or…
Farm, or…
Create and distribute food, or…
Provide critical services, or…
Have overseas assets, or…
Owe a ton of money, or…
You get the idea. You want to be above, outside or against the currency; which is kind of where Ben Benanke is.
Any wage slave is dead meat.
Any small business is dead meat if they extend trade credit.
Most pensioners are left starving. ( Russia, Weimar Republic, Argentina, et. al.)
Union employees can never renegotiate fast enough to stay ahead of hyperinflation.
Critical businesses that can make it through:
Utilities ( the more indebted they are the better )
( Of note Gates and Buffett are BIG utilities investors right now. )
Any business that ‘rents’ space short term and borrows long term:
Bowling alleys
Equipment rental
Mini-warehouses
Golf courses
Cold storage for food merchants
Some operations win huge on their debt but suffer operationally
Airlines
Motels
Hotels
Major commercial landlords
Huge beat downs for companies that ‘sell toys’
Apple
Microsoft
RIMM
Cash horde becomes trash and sales collapse…
For those lending long and borrowing short — total implosion:
Auto finance arms
Banks
Credit card issuers implode as they are unable to keep interest rates moving fast enough to stay up with the tempo during the run-away stage.
All in all, amazing things happen in hyper-inflation.
Of course, Japan, Britain, China, Taiwan all take huge beat-downs on their US Treasuries. These are positions so huge no counter-party can hedge them.
