Quotes from Adam Fergusson

In both countries rapid inflation caused homegrown produce to be withheld from the urban markets, with hunger and anger the inevitable result.

In hyperinflation, a kilo of potatoes was worth, to some, more than the family silver; a side of pork more than the grand piano. A prostitute in the family was better than an infant corpse; theft was preferable to starvation; warmth was finer than honour, clothing more essential than democracy, food more needed than freedom.

The question to be asked - the danger to be recognised - is how inflation, however caused, affects a nation: its government, its people, its officials, and its society. The more materialist that society, possibly, the more cruelly it hurts.

that if you wish to destroy a nation you must first corrupt its currency. Thus must sound money be the first bastion of a society's defence.

By contrast, the peasantry (two-thirds of the population) on the whole viewed it all with indifference as they were always able to sell their produce at something close to the world market price: possibly they were better off than any similar body in Europe.

Garbo's role may lack persuasion today; but from the odious butcher insulting and taunting the food queues at his shop, refusing meat to women he found unattractive or unwilling, to the scenes of the unlicensed, gluttonous revelry of the nightlife of the speculator and profiteer, and to the ultimate attack by a starving, angry crowd on a café full of merrymakers - the film was a faithful reflection of the times.