It is a long standing proposition of many, supported on both theoretical and historical grounds, that one of the surest roads to hyperinflation is one grounded in a government whose answer to every economic and social problem is to borrow and spend the problem away, supported by central bank able, willing and ready to finance the effort. That support is of course to simply print the money through which to buy the debt so issued by the government - what is euphemistically called monetizing the debt - thereby exploding the supply of money and eventually trashing its value.

We here at The Contrarian Take wholeheartedly agree with this proposition.

So, given the extraordinary borrowing needs of the U.S. government, currently being supported by a Federal Reserve whose QE II asset purchase program is large enough to finance 100% of the government's funding requirements through at least June, we thought we would take a look at the prospects for a hyperinflationary event in America. And while we think hyperinflation - defined as the total destruction in the value of the U.S. dollar - is a low probability event, a lot, and we do mean a lot more monetary inflation most definitely is not. You see, when you have a government that seems reluctant to change its borrow and spend policies in any meaningful way - a subject we took on here - teamed up with a central bank chaired by a man who thinks that loose fiscal and monetary policies are the springboard for a downtrodden economy, you have a recipe for a whole heap of monetary inflation. Indeed, in the opinion of THE CONTRARIAN TAKE, never has a U.S. central bank been chaired by a man who is more certain that loose fiscal and monetary policies are exactly what an economy mired in excess productive capacity and high unemployment requires to make things right.

Before we discuss the prospects for hyperinflation, some preliminaries...

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