“For the average American, inflation means the home price is increasing and the value of debt is going down, whereas the German invested in life insurance and sitting in an apartment he rented is much more vulnerable to inflation.” [NYT]

- Peter Bofinger, a prominent economist on Mrs. Merkel’s independent council of economic advisers, cited by Nicholas Kulish in Haunted by ’20s Hyperinflation, Germans Balk at Euro Aid

This is why the German bourgeoisie will not allow the Euro to be saved. The question is, are they right? Will they be better off with their saving converted to Deutschmarks and a Europe - and a world - firmly in a new depression?

They might actually be right. This could be a zero sum game that they would win by letting the Euro experiment crash, instead of bailing it out.

(Stowe Boyd, underpaidgenius)

Except that for the average American, inflation presumably means the cost of servicing their home loan is increasing. However it doesn’t necessarily mean that the value of their home is increasing - many are still hugely underwater in negative equity. So they’re paying a lot more, and meanwhile wage increases are not remotely keeping step with inflation because there’s a huge amount of spare labour capacity from unemployed people (and unions / collective bargaining power is very weak.)

TL;DR - the American is at least as vulnerable as the German to inflation. I’m inclined to think more so, given that German rents would be increasing from mostly a pretty low, affordable base.