As a college professor I’m supposed to look down on Wikipedia. After all, anybody can post things to it. And it just substitutes for good old-fashioned research.
Well, I certainly don’t accept students citing Wikipedia in their essays and I insist they use it only as a first – not last – source.
Still, there are times when the Wikipedia entry is just so informative and entertaining and well-organized that it beats any other medium.
I’m thinking especially of the entry for the Hungarian Pengo, an extinct currency used between 1927 and 1946. I came across it while looking at the entry on hyperinflation. I suspected that Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation was the worst in recorded history until I learned about the infamous devaluing of the Pengo in 1945 and 1946.
One could exchange 5 pengos for one dollar at the beginning of World War II. But in 1946, it cost 460 octillion pengos to get one dollar in return. Yes, I said octillion. As in 10 to the 29th power.
The largest denomination note ever printed was the 100 quintillion pengo note.
Here it is:
The suspicion around Budapest was that Marxists had taken over the Hungarian National Bank and deliberately devalued the currency in order to ruin the upper classes.
The pengo was finally replaced by the forint in August 1946.
When you fear fiat currency and quantitative easing, think always of the Pengo.
This is just one of the amazing things you can learn on Wikipedia!