He saw that inflation had originated with wartime shortages, which had led, in turn, to the waning value of money. Over time, the inflation had acquired a self-reinforcing momentum. Economic fundamentals alone could not account for this inflation, Hamilton noted, detecting a critical psychological factor at work. People were "governed more by passion and prejudice than by an enlightened sense of their interests," he wrote. "The quantity of money in circulation is certainly a chief cause of its decline. But we find it is depreciated more than five times as much as it ought to be…. The excess is derived from opinion, a want of confidence.
( Ron Chernow )
[ Alexander Hamilton ]
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