What You Should Know About Inflation

This book was first published in 1960. For the present edition, the main statistical comparisons and tables have been brought up to date. Where older figures and comparisons illustrate the particular principle or contention involved fully as well as more recent figures would, however, they have been allowed to stand.

HENRY HAZLITT

July, 1964.

Over the years in which I have been writing the weekly “Business Tides” column for Newsweek, I have received frequent inquiries from readers asking where they could obtain a brief and simple exposition of the causes and cure of inflation. Others have asked for advice concerning what course they could follow personally to prevent further erosion in the purchasing power of their savings. This book is designed to answer these needs.

Most of the material in it has appeared in my Newsweek articles during recent years; but all of the statistics and references have been brought up to date, and new material has been added to complete and round out the exposition.

The book has been deliberately kept short. But readers who are not interested in some of the collateral problems, but wish only a brief over-all view, may find what they are looking for either in the first six chapters or in the final chapter, “The ABC of Inflation,” which attempts to summarize what is most important in the preceding discussion.

There are some repetitions in the book, but I offer no apology for them. When, as in this subject, basic causes are persistently ignored and basic principles persistently forgotten, it is necessary that they be patiently reiterated until they are at last understood and acted upon.

HENRY HAZLITT

July, 1960.