Economics Explained's Hyperinflation Nonsense

As an economist who studied inflation and monetary policy during his PhD, I was rather confused about one of the latest Economics Explained (EE) videos which makes wild claims and introduces many (seemingly) new theories. So, in this video, I'm checking if EE's claims are at least somewhat grounded in economic theory and not directly contradicted by data.

WANT TO HELP ME PRODUCE MORE CONTENT LIKE THIS?

5 BOOKS THAT INSPIRED THIS CHANNEL

PAPERS ON INVESTMENT UNDER INFLATION

SOURCES:
I've linked my sources in the blog that goes along with this video. Most links are in the text. But, I added some extra literature and data sources to the end of the blog.

Timestamps:
0:00​ - introduction
1:57 - is the US like Weimar 1?
3:03 - sponsor
4:06 - is the US like Weimar 2?
13:07​ - when is hyperinflation unstoppable?
18:50 - is the US special?
20:27 - how to protect yourself

Attribution:
- Check marks by Alvaro_cabrera / Freepik
- Baker & bread by macrovector / Freepik
- up arrow Designed by Freepik

Narrated and produced by Dr. Joeri Schasfoort (University of Cape Town & University of Groningen)

[unlearningeconomics]

This is an excellent and fair response to what was, let's be honest, a very silly video

[enclave]

I’ve enjoyed EE for awhile but your critiques are excellent and convincing. I’d really like him to either respond or own his mistakes. There’s nothing wrong with being mistaken but there is something wrong with pretending that criticism doesn’t exist and hoping it goes away.

[alecward]

Fantastic work. As a long time EE viewer, I've been increasingly skeptical of his analyses over the last year or two. I'm deeply grateful to see well-researched counter-arguments like this.

[MrARock]

"If you laid all the world's economists end to end, you still wouldn't reach a conclusion."

[orionbukantis]

I normally dislike critical response videos. They can be a lazy way to piggyback on someone else's hard earned success.
But when it's a subject matter expert responding with deep analysis and real data, that's a different story. Well done.

[yagyaseni]

My husband (he's a programmer) introduced me to EE. I've my masters in Accountancy. I've always loved Economics but it's never been one of my core subjects. When I saw EE's videos I just kept saying "no, that's not true" but could never really explain why. Thank you for explaining it so well and taking into account the other economic factors.
P.S. My husband introduced me to your channel as well!

[Kameeho]

MM + EE = MEME

Id love to see a collab video between the two.
When your working alone it is easy to get blindsided and get things wrong or misunderstood.
This is why response and constructive critique videos like these are good.
And having a discussion between conflicting ideas usually leads to better understanding of it all.

[undercoverduck]

These response videos are so important for so many reasons. It's much healthier to get different perspectives rather than taking one creator's views for granted.

[hugosetiawan]

I'm a viewer from Indonesia, also currently learning economics in one of the local universities. Sometimes I find the economics curriculum to be very hard to follow and I resort to youtubers like you and EE to make me understand about economics. I kinda feel dissapointed that EE wasn't as correct as you have criticized, but it's things like this that make the economy so interesting to learn! Thank you for your hardwork, and the way you humbly respond to other viewers comments even engaging with them is so down to earth. One of my favorite economics youtubers!

[jelamj]

Shorting currencies was a standard practice in Yugoslavia. Before the war hyperinflation made the Dinar worthless so people turned to the DM, but before the hyperinflation really hit everyone payed off their mortgage with one or two monthly wages. So everyone who had friends or family in Germany bought a lot of real estate and we ended up with a lot of house owners. This could never happen again, but it made a lot of people seriously wealthy.

[hisownfool]

Thank you for doing this response. I was hoping that you would. I like EE's channel but his hyper-inflation series has struck me as overwrought and odd. I am not a chauvinistic American but the comparisons to Zimbabwe and Weimar Germany were alien to my day-to-day experience. For instance, he made a big deal of soaring lumber prices in the U.S. As I write this, lumber prices are down to 2018 levels, hardly the turn of events that has me rushing out to turn my retirement savings to Gold and Dogecoin.

[dunnowy]

I really hope he responds. I've kind of felt that since 2021, his channel has fallen off a bit. The arguments seem to make less sense, the videos come out less regularly and the subject matter is l as interesting. Healthy competition may bring EE back haha

[Kvadraten]

I’m not an economist, but I do follow economic news. It’s difficult for me to contradict EE who *is* an economist — but several times when I would watch his videos, especially his country videos, a lot of things just seemed wrong..

So glad to have found your channel!

[joelrasdall]

YT decided I needed to start watching EE, and after seeing his arguments about why we didn't want to fix the rising cost of housing, I started looking for content like this. Thank you for posting this. Liked and subscribed.

[Custo]

This aged exceptionally well (unlike EE claims).

[troelsdc]

Very well argumented and well put. "Always look at the assumptions made" is an excellent rule of thumb when evaluating economic theory.

[chonkydonkyexplains]

I'm grateful that channels like yours exists. EE has every right to offer their opinion, but to boldly brand themselves as being *the* Economics Explained, as if to suggest they are explaining actual economics as opposed to offering unfounded commentary -- is arguably dishonest and misleads far too many students who can't tell apart propaganda from fact. I hope you continue to debunk videos like this.

[thomasjalabert]

I'm glad YT suggested your video (you have awesome "guy doing research" skills !). I usually like EE videos but when he discusses a subject I actually know something about, it feels really oversimplified and sometimes wrong.
I would love to see if EE has something to add to your video.

[keenanmorrison]

Love the level of digging you do to test the assumptions of each argument. Really enjoyed this video.

[pedritodio]

I'm not really an economist but on a hobby on getting to know about economics, been a huge fan of EE and quite skeptical on this video, but presented with data and another perspective of things its hard for me to not rethink and evaluate EE's perspective. More power already subscribed and still hoping for a comeback from EE his making Economics easy for pleabs like me.