Highest Inflation Rate Ever?

Last Thursday morning, you could buy a packet of potassium iodide tablets for $10. Tuesday morning it would have cost you $540.

That is a 5,300% increase in the space of 5 days.

Annualized, that is 3 x 10¹²⁶%.

Yes, that’s scientific notation.

Here’s the rate written out: 2, 915, 710, 944, 820, 310, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000%.

Is this the highest inflation rate ever? ‡

Believe it or not, it is only the penultimate inflation rate.

It’s more digestible to convert this into a daily inflation rate, which would be 122%.

That rate is higher than that in Zimbabwe a few years ago, but it still falls short of Hungary in 1946.

N.B.

‡ Strictly speaking, while an inflation rate can apply to one good or many, most published inflation rates apply to a “market basket” of many goods.

Technorati Tags: iodide,inflation,rate,highest,hyperinflation,japan,radiation