The same happened in Venezuela, only they weren't able to control it. Inflation preceded the scarcity, and then scarcity made inflation even worse. And now they have mass starvation, no medicines etc.

That's fairly typical. Government prints money, there's hyper-inflation, government tries to fix things by banning marking prices up, people stop selling and manufacturing stuff; scarcity and having to go the black-market to get food makes inflation even worse.

In Brazil it followed and was mainly triggered by the 1970s energy crisis.

Iraq has had 300% a year at one point and it came down.

Venezuela seems to me a similar case to Zimbabwe. Their only asset (oil, agriculture in the case of Zimbabwe) was taken from the hands of the people that was exploiting it (if that it's fair is another question) and the production plunged (1).

It didn't help that the price of oil dropped at the same time.

So, a supply problem also.

The consequences: they can't get foreign currency. As they don't produce almost anything else than oil they have to import everything. The value of their currency goes down, they have "to print" money to keep the government working. Hyperinflation. They try price control (that don't work very well).

If there is a "fairly typical" process for hyperinflation is that one.

(1). https://tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/crude-oil-production

Take a look at: https://tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/inflation-cpi

Of course 800% is worse than 100%.

But how do you explain 30%-100% inflation at a time when oil was at peak price?

It's simply impossible not to have inflation when you're printing money and flooding the economy with it -- no matter the supply side.

The oil situation probably became the tipping point when compounded with their monetary policies and price control efforts.

[0] https://tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/inflation-cpi

[1] http://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-char...

[2] https://ycharts.com/indicators/venezuela_oil_production (barrels per day, average across the year, goes through 2016)

Hyperinflation is usually very, very high inflation. Original definition was 50% monthly inflation (this would be 600% annual, higher actually since it would be compounding). 30% annual inflation isn't hyperinflation (though it's certainly not good, and after several years could be catastrophic on its own).

https://tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/crude-oil-production

https://tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/inflation-cpi

Please, for a better comparative, view it with the 5 years window for the graphs.

Only after the government realizes they can't indefinitely finance their spending by printing money, then they turn to seizing wealth production, or do stupid things like price control. Then things get really ugly.

It's difficult to tell if statements are true without hard evidence and data to back the claim.

Article in Spanish https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiperinflaci%C3%B3n_argentina_...

Autotransalation: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=es&tl=en&js=y&prev...

Edit: Nonexistent government is also a government problem - I didn't mean it in that way, I meant it in the sense of "problem related to government!"

As for "how can you keep things running when the supply-side collapses," you could replace inflation with taxes. You could achieve the same re-assignment of value explicitly instead of implicitly: people would end up just as robbed, but the currency wouldn't have to end up devalued. (This might end up helping the economy and making people less poor in the end, since it would mean that you still get to think about your inflationary/deflationary policy decisions. Essentially nobody would choose the regressiveness/progressiveness profile of hyperinflation if given the option, and would instead probably prefer to arrange the necessary pain in some other way.)

Somalia hasn't had a national government in 25 years, so there's no central authority to regulate the money supply or print currency.

Consequently, 98% of the bank notes in circulation are now poor-quality counterfeits, and buyers and sellers know they're fake.

The market has reached an equilibrium, with a single 1000-shilling denomination that trades at approximately the cost to print it.

Hyperinflation ends when the value of the currency equals the cost to print it, and when the population won't accept arbitrarily larger denominations.

You don't need a government to create a useful currency. Hyperinflation can begin and end with or without a government.

I suppose that what you mean is that hyperinflation will stop at some point, not that it "can't happen". If you destroy the 80% of the economy what follows is hyperinflation. Never mind if you are in the gold standard, a fiat system or whatever.

>"The real question is, what happens to governments that causes them to respond to supply problems with inflationary policy?"

What happens is, it seems to me, obvious. You have to keep the services running, so, you have to pay people, but the money is not valuable anymore, so, you have to give more.

What it seems that you are insinuating is that a country would be better off if the government would not try to keep the country running. I don't think this is the case. But I suppose that it is the real question.